Shafaq News..US revokes Taif Sami’s visa, adds her to terror watchlist

Shafaq News- Baghdad

The US State Department has withdrawn the visa of former
Iraqi Finance Minister Taif Sami and placed her on a US terrorist watchlist,
Fox News reported on Friday, citing a senior State Department official.

Dylan Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for Global
Public Affairs, said that while the Biden State Department “shamefully
celebrated and awarded foreigners who threaten our nation, the Trump State
Department revokes their visas and ensures these individuals are removed from
our country.”

The move followed accusations by Republican lawmakers that
Sami helped facilitate “terrorist financing” through Iraq’s financial system.
US Representatives Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, and Greg
Steube, a Republican from Florida, previously described Sami as a key enabler
of terrorist funding in Iraq,
urging the Trump administration to sanction her.

Sami served as Iraq’s finance minister and received the US
State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in 2022 during the
administration of President Joe Biden.

Fox News also cited a report by the Iraqi News Agency, which
quoted informed sources as saying that an Iraqi court had summoned Sami and
placed her on a judicial wanted list as authorities expanded investigations
into corruption allegations involving senior former government officials.

In June, Sami’s office denied reports that she had fled Iraq
or been arrested amid an anti-corruption campaign, describing the reports as false.