Kurdish-American Faces Trial Orchestrated by Iran-Backed Forces in Iraq
Sara Saleem returned to Iraq seeking justice for her abduction and stolen business. Instead, she's being prosecuted in a court system shaped by Tehran’s proxies.
Sara Saleem stood silently as the judge refused to hear her witnesses and dismissed documents that had once promised justice. Nearly a decade after she was kidnapped in the southern Iraqi city of Basrah, the woman who returned to Iraq to rebuild her life now faces prosecution—while her alleged abductors walk free.
A US citizen of Kurdish descent, Saleem came back to Iraq in 2023 seeking redress following a 2014 kidnapping during which her business was seized. Armed with court files, witness statements, and support from the FBI’s legal attaché in Baghdad, she expected due process. Instead, her case has morphed into a high-stakes showdown with Iran-aligned power brokers entrenched in Iraq’s judiciary.
Her story unfolds amid a volatile regional moment, as Israel and Iran continue to strike one another. Last week, the US moved to partially evacuate its Baghdad embassy out of fears of escalation.
This constrained US footprint highlights the risks faced by Americans and dual nationals in Iraq—especially those, like Saleem, entangled in legal disputes where Iranian-linked actors are involved and judicial protections are tenuous.
That vulnerability becomes even clearer in the handling of a document her legal team describes as a binding confession. Submitted during her retrial, the document allegedly contained an admission from one of the accused parties outlining key details of the asset seizure and Saleem’s abduction.
“We’ve seen this playbook before—delay the process, swap the judges, silence the prosecutors,” Robert Amsterdam, Saleem’s lead attorney, told The Media Line. “That confession being ignored tells you everything you need to know.”
Saleem told The Media Line that she was made to feel “like the criminal, not the victim.”
Her case lays bare how Iraq’s courts—particularly in politically sensitive trials—are shaped less by law than by the shifting balance of factional influence.
Even as Tehran’s influence in Syria and Lebanon has come under strain—with Israeli strikes targeting Iranian assets and political gridlock hobbling Hezbollah—Iraq continues to serve as a rear base for Iran’s regional agenda.
Recent reports by the Washington Institute and other regional monitors describe Baghdad as a center of strategic depth, where Iran-aligned militias are consolidating their hold on both the security sector and the judiciary.
Saleem’s ordeal began in 2014, after she built Safat Al Basra, a real estate development venture valued at over $200 million.
She was abducted by individuals she accuses of being tied to Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, both factions within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces. She was held and tortured for 43 days before being released. In her absence, the business was stripped of its assets, its equipment looted, and its license revoked.
I didn’t go there to take. I went there to build. Everyone said it was too dangerous, too corrupt. But I believed that if I built something honest, the law would protect it. I was wrong.
“I didn’t go there to take. I went there to build,” Saleem said of Basrah. “Everyone said it was too dangerous, too corrupt. But I believed that if I built something honest, the law would protect it. I was wrong.”
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Sara Saleem is seen here hospitalized following 43 days in captivity. (Shad Saleem)
Basrah, which lies just 20 miles from the Iranian border, has become an emblem of Iraq’s distorted political economy. It’s considered Iraq’s oil capital and generates over 80% of the country’s exports—but the city itself is underdeveloped.
Powerful militias in Basrah dominate key sectors like fuel smuggling and construction, turning reconstruction into a system of patronage and coercion. Infrastructure projects are routinely hijacked, kickbacks enforced, and dissent violently suppressed—undermining any semblance of legal or civic oversight.
In 2022, $400,000 in stolen construction equipment from Saleem’s company reappeared in Basrah. Despite confessions, the court dismissed the case. Months later, criminal charges were brought against Saleem instead.
This isn’t just legal harassment. It’s retribution—for surviving, for coming back, for daring to speak.
“This isn’t just legal harassment,” Saleem’s son and interpreter, Shad Saleem, told The Media Line. “It’s retribution—for surviving, for coming back, for daring to speak.”
Shad Saleem is coordinating his mother’s legal effort from Washington.
Her current trial in Baghdad is proceeding under what her legal team describes as overtly biased conditions. In fact, Iraqi court records originally seemed to support her claims.
In July 2023, Baghdad 24 News reported that the Karkh Court issued arrest warrants and travel bans for brothers Nizar, Namir, and Ramez Hanna, citing accusations they defrauded the Trade Bank of Iraq of $185 million—based on documents and evidence submitted by both the bank and Saleem.
“All necessary evidence was submitted to the Iraqi judiciary,” the outlet wrote.
But what was once a sign of justice has since crumbled into retrial motions, cleared defendants, and mounting charges against Saleem herself, in what her team alleges is a malicious reversal. The judge has blocked witnesses and excluded documentation verifying her ownership and prior rulings in her favor.
“She was seen not just as an outsider, but as a challenge to entrenched power,” Shad Saleem said.
In May 2025, Saleem escalated her battle to US courts. A civil lawsuit filed in Virginia targets two former business associates, Nizar and Naji Hanna, accusing them of fraud and conspiracy to defraud her of her ownership stake. She’s seeking $150 million in damages and the recovery of assets allegedly laundered through offshore accounts.
Amsterdam, Saleem’s attorney, said the Virginia lawsuit is only part of the effort. His firm is preparing a referral under the Global Magnitsky Act, aimed at sanctioning judges and officials who facilitated the alleged injustice.
“This pattern is common in Iraq,” Amsterdam said, particularly when the victims are women or members of the diaspora.
In Washington, Republican Representatives Greg Steube of Florida and Joe Wilson of South Carolina have taken up Saleem’s cause. In a May 2025 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the lawmakers warned that Iraq was “falling under the complete subjugation of Iran” and called for urgent US action to prevent further empowerment of what they described as “Iraqi institutions that have become essential clients of the Iranian regime.”
The letter named specific Iraqi officials—including Trade Bank of Iraq Chairman Bilal Hamoudi—and urged sanctions targeting those accused of enabling militia influence and judicial manipulation.
Iraq’s judiciary is nominally independent. In practice, civil society watchdogs and former officials say it answers to dominant political blocs, particularly those aligned with Iran. At the apex of this system is Faiq Zaidan, head of the Supreme Judicial Council.
In recent years, Zaidan has steered the courts toward centralization, often ruling in favor of Shiite-majority factions.
Zaidan has also presided over high-profile scandals, including the release of suspects in Iraq’s so-called “heist of the century”—a $2.5 billion tax fraud. In 2024, he reversed a landmark ruling by the Federal Supreme Court, an unusual move that legal scholars say eroded the court’s credibility.
In one of the most politically charged moments of his tenure, Zaidan in January 2021 issued an arrest warrant for then-President Donald Trump, accusing him of “premeditated murder” for ordering the drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Though largely symbolic and later withdrawn, the warrant signaled Zaidan’s willingness to use judicial tools in alignment with Iran-linked interests.
On June 9 of this year, Iraq marked Judiciary Day. Zaidan again insisted that “judicial independence is the foundation of any system.” But the timing of the celebration has drawn renewed scrutiny, since June 9 also marks the 2021 release of Qasim Muslih, a militia commander detained for allegedly ordering the assassination of a protest leader. Muslih’s case was transferred to the judiciary and dropped within hours.
The DC-based Freedom House nonprofit reports that Iraq’s judiciary suffers from “persistent political pressure,” with verdicts routinely shaped by corruption, intimidation, and partisan alignment. Judicial proceedings often lack transparency, and security forces associated with political parties exert pressure on both judges and prosecutors, distorting legal outcomes and weakening public trust in the system.
A February 2025 report by the London School of Economics similarly argues that Iraq’s courts have become tools for consolidating political power. Authors Zainab Alkhudary and Toby Dodge warn that this trend disadvantages Kurds and Sunnis while reinforcing the dominance of Iran-aligned parties.
Saleem is not the only one suffering as a result of the rise of Iran-backed militias in Iraq. A Washington Institute analysis from June 2025 highlights how Kata’ib Hezbollah has been actively expanding its grip on Basrah—mobilizing ahead of elections, embedding itself in local governance, and exerting control over infrastructure contracts.
Meanwhile, the Long War Journal reports that roughly 20,000 militia fighters, many stationed in Basrah, were recently integrated into the Popular Mobilization Forces. While framed by Baghdad as a move toward professionalization, analysts argue this formal incorporation has simply legalized militia control—allowing armed factions loyal to Tehran to dominate security and economic networks under the banner of the state.
I am a businesswoman. I’m Kurdish. I’m an American. I’m an investor. I am everything these people oppose. Every day the judiciary sells out rulings. Every day it sells blood.
“I am a businesswoman. I’m Kurdish. I’m an American. I’m an investor,” she said. “I am everything these people oppose. Every day the judiciary sells out rulings. Every day it sells blood.”
Her case, her lawyers argue, is a bellwether for Iraq’s direction. If the US government fails to act, they warn, it sends a signal to other victims: that the rule of law in Iraq can be bought—and that Washington won’t intervene, even when its own citizens are targeted.
“If they can do this to someone with a voice and support,” Saleem said, “imagine what happens to those with no one watching.”
