"The military hierarchy has tainted the image of the Moroccan justice system."
Mustapha Adib, TI Integrity Awards winner 2000

A Moroccan army captain, who served a two and a half year prison term after he exposed an oil-and-supplies scam in the Moroccan military, Captain Mustapha Adib's only crime seems to have been his complaints to the foreign press, Le Monde and Agence France Presse.

Adib was freed from the Sale prison in May 2002. TI recognised the young captain's courage by honouring him with the first TI Integrity Award in 2000. It was not until TI's Annual General Meeting in Morocco in October 2002 that he was finally able to receive his prize. Today, as a free man, he is still battling for justice for whistle-blowers: "The fear of losing your job, getting cut off from society, and having to rebuild your life from scratch may lead you to think twice about speaking up," he says.

The Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (CCAGG), a citizens' group in a remote province of the Philippines that carries out on-the-spot checks on infrastructure projects to ensure that government money is used for its intended purpose. Monitoring of government projects began following the rapid decay of several bridges and roads that seemed to go nowhere.

Lasantha Wickremetune is the Editor of Sri Lanka's Sunday Leader newspaper, whose publication was banned by the Sri Lankan government after he exposed corruption. Mr. Wickremetunge's life and that of his family have been threatened, including an attack with automatic weapons. He has also been subject to defamation charges by the government for publishing certain articles.

A lawyer for Argentina's central bank in the 1980s, Dr Alfredo María Pochat led investigations into asset-stripping in more than 70 financial institutions. As head of the Corruption Control Programme of the national Postal Service in 1993, he dismantled major fraud schemes. In his last post, as Director of Special Investigations in the Argentine Social Security Administration, he discovered fraud amounting to millions of public dollars. He was assassinated on 4 June 1997 moments before announcing financial irregularities in the Argentine Social Security body.