The Kurdistan Victims Fund, a charity incorporated in Wyoming, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Kurdistan Regional Government. Co-defendants include many, but not all, members of the ruling Barzani family and their top aides. While Iraqi Kurdish Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani will likely claim sovereign immunity, the fact that he is, according to the lawsuit, a permanent resident of the United States negates that claim.
The allegations are expansive and documented in detail. Paragraph 15 summarizes:
”...BARZANI FAMILY MEMBERS AND FAMILY MEMBERS BY MARRIAGE, AND OTHERS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, IN THEIR CONTINUING DECADES-LONG (AND NOT SPORADIC), ENTERPRISE-WIDE PATTERN OF UNLAWFUL ACTIVITY AND CORRUPTION IN THEIR TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL NETWORK ARE [complicit in]: (A) MURDER OF A UNITED STATES AGENT (B) U.S. IMMIGRATION FRAUD AND PERJURY (C) EXTRAJUDICIAL MURDERS AND ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES (D) GENOCIDE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES (E) TORTURE OF A U.S. CITIZEN (F) ILLEGAL EXILE OF KURDISH CITIZENS (G) INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING.”
“In but one representative instance, in November, 2021, operating under direct orders from Defendants Masoud Barzani, Masrour Barzani [at a time Defendant Masrour Barzani was Prime Minister of Defendant Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, the presiding and actual head of government and head of the executive power,] and Waysi Barzani, agents of the Barzani Continuing Criminal Enterprise, participated in the supporting, planning, preparation, conducting, or concealing for and did, to gain political or economic advantages, conspire to take hostage and kidnap and murder and did take hostage and kidnap and murder an officer and employee (not herein named to protect his surviving family in the United States from Barzani Continuing Criminal Enterprise terrorist retribution and retaliatory physical or mental harm) of the United States Government and agencies in the executive branch of the United States Government, who was performing official duties, with malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation and during the perpetration of, and attempt to perpetrate, a hostage taking and kidnapping, while such officer and employee was engaged in and on account of the performance of his official duties, in the village of Balay in Iraqi Kurdistan, within the Republic of Iraq with intent to kidnap and sell or otherwise trade the agent employee to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and/or Iranian intelligence agents, did commit murder...”
The U.S. District Court will consider the case in the coming months, though certainly the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Barzani family will seek its dismissal on various grounds of standing or sovereign immunity. Neither of those strategies, however, undercut the substance of the accusations.
At a minimum, it is time for the Senate to pursue its oversight function and ask in open or closed session: Was a U.S. government employee murdered in Iraqi Kurdistan, and under what circumstances? Similarly, while the Barzanis and their representatives repeatedly ask for more assistance from the U.S. government, congressional oversight and foreign affairs committees might want to explore those demands against damning evidence not only that the Barzanis murdered a U.S. government employee but also engaged in smuggling, counterfeiting, and trafficking.
