Hussein Al Uzri

Who is Hussein Al Uzri?

Hussein Isam Al Uzri is the grand nephew of famous Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi. He was selected in 2003, after the US invasion of the Iraq as the first Chairman of Board of directors and President of the Trade Bank of Iraq. In 2011 he fled from Iraq in to avoid facing charges related to an investigation of the TBI bank. In June 2011, Reuters reported that the Iraqi government had issued an arrest warrant for Al Uzri, stemming from an investigation at the Trade Bank. As yet no details of the allegations, or any supporting evidence have been presented.

During Hussein Al-Uzri’s stewardship, the bank grew from nothing to be the largest bank in Iraq. It had a monopoly on government letters of credit, which in the Iraqi state driven economy, was substantial. Investigations by the Iraqi Government showed it to be troubled despite the regular auditing and annual reporting, the latest of which is 2010 report published on the bank's website www.tbiraq.com and is reported by PWC. Though it was technically a state owned bank, Al-Uzri operated it like a commercial bank.

Mr. Al Uzri worked at Card Tech for 20 years of banking, commercial and project management experience in the Middle East, Europe and the former Soviet Union. He began his financial career in Amman, Jordan where he gained experience in credit analysis, feasibility studies, cash flow projections, investment analysis and IT. Here, Mr. Al Uzri took charge of two restructuring projects for a bank where he turned around failing businesses and brought them back into profit within one year. Between 1992 and 2000, Mr. Al Uzri was resident in Moscow where he was manager of INPASS, a joint venture between Finland’s OKO Bank and UK financial technology firm CTL. In this capacity Mr. Al Uzri was responsible for the introduction of a number of financial services in the FSU including the first VISA cards, the first Electronic Point of Sale machines, and the first automatic teller machines. From 2000-2003 Mr. Al Uzri was general manager for the Former Soviet Union and the Middle East based at CTL’s London headquarters.