AL WIFAQ MP RAISES ALLEGATIONS OF LAND SALE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MANAMA 000409 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL BA POL SUBJECT: AL WIFAQ MP RAISES ALLEGATIONS OF LAND SALE CORRUPTION WITH MINISTER OF JUSTICE Classified By: DCM Susan L. Ziadeh for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) During the Council of Representatives' (COR) weekly session April 17, Shia political society Al Wifaq MP Jawad Fairooz raised the issue of individuals profiting from sales of land received through free grants from the government or the King. He brought up the matter during a question and answer session with Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs Shaikh Khalid Bin Ali Al Khalifa. The Minister had been called to parliament to provide multi-year information about plots of land that had been granted to individuals by the government. Fairooz presented a document that described one such plot of land as "a government gift which the owner is not permitted to lease or sell." However, Fairooz went on to say, recently a senior official who owned several plots of gifted land sold three of them for a total of BD 3.5 million (nearly $9.3 million). Allegedly this official had received at least 5 plots of land, whose total area was 24,000 square meters (approximately six acres),from the government. ¶2. (C) In a meeting with Poloff on April 22, Fairooz went into more detail about the land sales. He said that the sales he had referred to in the parliamentary session had been carried out by Shaikh Mohammed Bin Attiyatallah Al Khalifa, who is the president of the Royal Court. The documents he presented were copies of the sales documents that implicate Shaikh Mohammed. He had also received documents showing that Shaikh Ahmed Bin Attiyatallah Al Khalifa, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Shaikh Mohammed's brother, had similarly received land gifted from the state. ¶3. (C) Fairooz explained to Poloff that the 2006 Al Bandar report had alleged that Shaikh Ahmed had made payouts to individuals for various political reasons, mainly to ensure their loyalty to the government. After reading the report, Fairooz said that he had wondered why Shaikh Ahmed would have spent his own personal funds for this purpose. However, as he learned more about this land scheme and saw the evidence, he had come to realize that land sales were a likely source of funds for these alleged payments. ¶4. (C) Fairooz said that he knew that Justice Minister Shaikh Khalid would not be able to publicly respond to these allegations directly, but he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to raise the issue in public. Fairooz said that he would seek to amend Law 19 of 2002, which is a royal decree enacted in July 2002 superseding all previous legislation relating to the status of public lands. Article two of the decree gives the King the sole authority to approve all public land designations and grants. The law specifies that land granted for one purpose cannot be later used for another purpose without approval by the King, and, according to Fairooz, this includes the sale of that land for profit. Fairooz said, "The authority to grant land should not be in the hands of one individual, no matter who he is, because land is one of the country's scarce natural resources. The public's wealth is being given away." ¶5. (C) Comment: Allegations of corruption related to land reclamation and/or sales ranks high on the opposition's list of contested issues. Political naturalization and gerrymandered election districts are two other similarly "hot-button" issues. Opposition politicians have long expressed their concern that Bahrain, which has limited natural resources, is losing a significant amount of its national wealth to influential individuals through corrupt means. ********************************************* ******** Visit Embassy Manama's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/manama/ ********************************************* ******** MONROE