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Iraq's Chalabis Face Warrants
Follow-up on Frank G's post yesterday, dentally extracted from a Rooters article.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant against leading politician and former Pentagon darling Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi, the head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein. Zuhair al-Maliki, chief investigative judge of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, said an arrest warrant had been issued against Ahmad Chalabi in connection with counterfeiting money and against his nephew on a murder charge.

Ahmad Chalabi, who helped lead the United States to war in Iraq, was once touted as a potential leader of the country after Saddam was ousted, but has since been spurned by Washington and many in Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's interim government.

Ahmad Chalabi, who fell out with Washington over accusations he provided false information on weapons of mass destruction, said he would come home to fight the charges brought by the U.S.-appointed judge which he said were politically motivated. "I do not know who is doing this and why. They are not patriots. I have done my duty and helped liberate Iraq," he told Reuters from Iran, where he was on holiday.

"I will return in a few days. I can easily prove that these charges are untrue and I intend to defend myself and clear my name."
Sounds like a Rantburg Futures to me.
Officials in Washington have said Chalabi is being investigated for leaking secrets to Iran. In 1992 he was convicted in absentia of bank fraud by a military court in Jordan. He says those charges too were politically motivated.

Salem Chalabi, a lawyer, is leading the work of the Iraqi Special Tribunal which will try Saddam, the deposed president captured last year by U.S. troops. He told CNN the charges appeared to be very strange. "The warrant for me has to do with the fact that apparently I threatened somebody, I have no recollection of ever meeting that person, but apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed," he said, speaking from Britain.
That would be enough to empanel a grand jury here.

Posted by: Steve White 2004-08-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=40032