Metro,Rudaw
Erbil’s Police Directorate has arrested over 9,000 people on different charges in 2022, read the directorate’s annual report released on Saturday.
According to the report, Erbil’s Police Directorate had recorded 7,678 crimes between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022, and 90 percent of those crimes have been put in front of court, with only 10 percent remaining under investigation.
"The forces of the Erbil Provincial Police Directorate were able to arrest 9,446 people accused of various crimes, including theft, murder, forgery, drugs, shooting, bandits, etc.,” the report read.
The 2022 police report showed a drop in crime rates in compare to 2021.
In 2021, Erbil recorded 12,645 crimes with 11,504 offenses settled as "the accused were brought to court in accordance with the laws,” the police directorate said in a statement sent to Rudaw at the time.
Erbil also saw 62 murders and 60 shooting incidents as gun violence continued to take the lives of people across the Kurdistan Region in 2022.
Gun violence is high in the Region and the government has struggled to bring gun ownership under control. Firearms, including sniper rifles and machine guns, can be purchased on the black market.
In a bid to control guns in the Region, Kurdistan Region’s General Police Directorate on Saturday announced that they would keep registration of unregistered weapons open until July, after which all unregistered weapons would be treated as illegal weapons.
The directorate specified that registration would only be open for weapons such as pistols and AK-47s, and not for military grade weapons such as PK machine guns and RPGs.