In a shabby neighborhood in central Baghdad, much of the local drug trade in Iraq takes place.
Here it is easy to buy hash, as well as crystal and captagon.
Since last year, Iraqi police have raided the area several times, sometimes shutting down the entire neighborhood to raid several apartments.
But the neighborhood is only at the top of the drug mountain in Iraq. The divided country has become a thoroughfare for narcotics. The drug routes run above all from Afghanistan, via Iran, as well as from Syria down to the Iraqi port city of Basra and out into the world.
– Due to Iraq’s geographical position, between countries that produce and others that consume narcotics and also the local use has led to Iraq becoming central to drug trafficking in recent years. But due to the situation, Iraq has taken the initiative to get control of this using, above all, intelligence, says Ahmed Al Zarkani.
750 convicted since 2023
He is responsible for Iraq’s relatively new anti-drug focus and appears on posters and advertising campaigns everywhere. Often it is accompanied by dramatic music and images of arrested drug users in yellow overalls.
– If we look at arrests from the years 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018, there were less than 230 punishments. From 2023 to now, there are already over 750 convicts, he says when TV4 visits him in his office in Baghdad, says Ahmed Al Zarkani.
He is aware that Swedish criminals have been drawn to Iraq because of the drug trade, but in the case of the gang leader Mostafa Aljiburi, also called Benzema, his plans to start drug production never got off the ground and the investigation surrounding him is about the murder.
Confessed under torture
But another Swedish citizen and two who had a Swedish residence permit have been arrested in the Iraqi police’s drug raids. They were arrested with 350 grams of marijuana and sentenced to death during the summer for having traded drugs internationally.
Their lawyer Wissam Al Jiburi whom TV4 met in Baghdad says they confessed under torture.
– They had bruises, scrapes and the joints at the shoulders were out of joint. They had obvious injuries. We were not allowed to attend the interrogation, but we were able to document it. We asked for them to come to a health center, which they were also denied, says Wissam Al Jiburi.
The sentence for the three men was reduced during August to time-limited.
– I could see how life returned to their faces. It has been extremely difficult psychologically for them, says Wissam Al Jiburi.
Drug dealers infiltrate the political system
There is criticism that it is above all petty criminals who are caught in the raids of the Iraqi police. Critics argue that powerful drug traffickers have infiltrated militias and the political system and are getting away with it.
But drug police chief Ahmed Al Zarkani claims they are the brains on the trail, thanks to better cooperation with neighboring countries.
– Hopefully we will also have more relations with Interpol and find it easier to stop this from two sides, he says.