Investigation launched into death of Daewoo director working on construction of Iraq’s Al Faw port

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - An investigation has been launched after the death by apparent suicide of a director of the South Korean company Daewoo, which is implementing the Al Faw port project in Iraq’s Basra Governorate, Iraqi authorities said on Friday.

Walid Al-Sharifi, the mayor of Al Faw district, announced the investigation into the death of Park il-ho, head of the Daewoo E&C office working on the project.

"The site where the body was found is near the port of Faw, 10km away, and it is secured by a private company, and there are surveillance cameras,” Mr Al Sharifi told Iraqi media.

Investigators are checking secutity cameras and have moved the body to a hospital.

The head of media department in the Ministry of transportation, Falih Hadi Hamza, told The National: "The Iraqi government formed a committee from the judiciary and the security forces and went to the scene of incidence to investigate the death of Daweoo company director. The body [is] now under examination in the hospital"

"There are monitoring cameras in Al Faw port that will show if the director was alone or someone is accompanied him... to stand further on the allegations that saying a side [or a person] was behind the crime," Mr Hamza added.

Mr Hamza said that no person can enter Al-Faw port without permission, and there is a security company supervised by a British officer responsible for the workers’ safety for companies, including Daewoo.

He added: "We are looking into the causes of the accident, how and why it happened."

There is currently no further information on the incident, which has prompted the company to suspend work in the port.

"The Iraqi security services arrived at the scene of the accident, and began to collect any further criminal evidence," Mr Al-Sharifi said.

This is the second death of a South Korean executive in Iraq over the past year. In 2019, the director of the company STX, which was making power stations and turbines, also committed suicide in Iraq.

Maj Gen Saad Maan, the director of the relations and information department in the Interior Ministry, said: "The Minister of Interior Othman Al-Ghanmi ordered the formation of a high-level investigation committee and sent it immediately to Basra Province to investigate the suicide of the director of the Korean Daewoo Company in the port of Faw in Basra."

The port in the south of Iraq has seen countless delays, due to financial problems. It has been over a decade since the Iraqi government first proposed the idea of the project.

The previous Iraqi government estimated the total cost to complete the construction project for the port at about $5.2 billion.