Chalabi called the charges 'politically motivated'

BAGHDAD, August 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An arrest warrant was issued by an Iraqi investigating magistrate against a former darling of the United States and an ex-member of the interim governing council who vowed Monday, August 9, to return to Iraq to defend himself against what he termed "politically motivated charges".

The magistrate, however, said Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew would both be arrested upon arrival in Iraq.

Ahmed Chalabi, one-time Pentagon protégé in the run up to its invasion-turned occupation of Iraq before a drastic fallout, is accused of putting forged money into circulation, while his nephew Salem Chalabi, faces more serious charges that, if proven, may see him executed, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

After issuing the arrest warrant Saturday, a Baghdad investigating magistrate, Zuhair Al-Maliky, said Sunday Ahmed Chalabi is accused of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars, which were removed from circulation after the ouster of Saddam's regime last year.

Another arrest warrant has also been issued against his nephew for alleged involvement in the killing of a senior Iraqi finance official.

Salem Chalabi is head of Iraq's special tribunal which has put former President Saddam Hussein on trial for war crimes. He has also denied the charges against him.

In Tehran for an economic conference, elder Chalabi said, he would return to Iraq to clear his name, despite voicing "deep concerns over the Iraqi criminal system".

"I'm now mobilized on all fronts to rebuff all these charges," Chalabi told CNN. "Nobody's above the law, and I submit to the law in Iraq... despite my serious and grave reservations about this court."

"The idea that I was involved in counterfeiting is ridiculous and the charges are being made for political purposes," he told CNN.

Younger Chalabi, currently in London, also denied the charges against himself and asserted he would return home to defend himself.

The head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein was charged with murder after having been named as a suspect in the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the Iraqi interim finance ministry.

"I don't think ... that I had anything to do with the charges so I'm not actually worried about it," Salem Chalabi told CNN from London, according to the Associated Press (AP). "It's a ridiculous charge, that I threatened somebody ... there's no proof there."

Arrest Upon Arrival

Perle is the only remaining US supporter of Chalabi after the drastic fallout

Al-Maliky Monday told AFP that both Chalabis will be arrested the moment they set foot in Iraq.

"This is not a summons, they will be arrested the moment they return to Iraq and they will appear before an investigating court," Al-Maliky told AFP in an interview.

That court will decide whether to refer them for trial by a higher tribunal, he added.

Ahmed Chalabi, on his part, has launched a scathing attack against Al-Maliky who issued the arrest warrant, calling him a "sergeant-turned-general overnight".

Both Chalabis said Al-Maliky is a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party who hope to derail the Iraqi special tribunal set up to try the former leader.

"Without a doubt, I'm being set up," Ahmed Chalabi said.

Salem Chalabi, also on CNN, said the charges were brought "to discredit the family and discredit the tribunal."

"I also feel that the court in question has an ulterior motive, and so I'm going to request an investigation into several things about this charge itself."

Francis Brooke, a Washington adviser to Chalabi, said the charges against both men were categorically untrue and said both would return to Iraq to defend themselves, according to The New York Times.

"Brooke assailed the magistrate who issued the charges, calling him an unqualified political appointee of L. Paul Bremer III, the former chief administrator of Iraq."

"I see him, personally, as acting as an agent of the U.S. government," Brooke said of the magistrate, Al-Maliky, according to the US daily.

Once Favorite US Iraqi Leader

Chalabi is a former Iraqi exile and head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), who returned to Iraq with US-led invading troops.

As Saddam's government fell in April 2003, the US military flew Ahmed Chalabi into Iraq at the head of a militia dubbed the "Free Iraqi Forces," as per the CNN.

But he lost favor in Washington since it was reported in May that senior US officials alleged he was passing classified US intelligence to Iran.

In Washington, the Bush administration had no comment about the charges against the Chalabis, according to the AP.

"This is a matter for the Iraqi authorities to resolve and they are taking steps to do so," White House spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis.

But a leading US hawk and one of Chalabi's remaining US supporters, Richard Perle, defended the Chalabis and waged a bitter attack on Al-Maliky, calling him a "rogue, out-of-control judge," according to CNN.

"He's systematically issued warrants against the INC and other members of the INC, and finally he's done it with respect to Ahmed Chalabi," said Perle, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and a former Reagan administration official.

"It's Saddam Hussein's style of justice, and it's appalling."

History Of Legal Problems

It is not the first time Chalabi faced fraud charges.

In 1992, Chalabi was sentenced to 22 years in prison in absentia in Jordan for fraud after his Petra Bank folded, bankrupt 12 years after he set it up.

Chalabi has dismissed the case as a conspiracy orchestrated by the Saddam regime, the Jordanian government and head of the Jordanian central bank.

His Baghdad home was raided by Iraqi police and US forces on May 21, 2004, to seize documents and computers, after which Chalabi cut ties with the US-led occupation authority.

Chalabi's intelligence reports bolstered Washington's pre-war claims that Saddam stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, a charge used to justify military action that has so far proven to be ungrounded.

The scion of a wealthy banking clan, Chalabi cozied up to US Vice President Dick Cheney and to influential hawks at the Pentagon, despite his dubious record in Jordan, becoming a leading light in the exiled Iraqi political opposition.

Born in 1945, Ahmed was 13 years old when his family fled Iraq after the 1958 revolution deposed the British-controlled King Faisal II.

Chalabi, with degrees from the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spent more time living in London and the United States than in his native Iraq.

His past life in relative luxury in exile has been used as a prime argument by his detractors who say he lacks a solid power base in Iraq.

In 1992, he tried to unite Shiite and Sunni Arabs together with Iraqi Kurds under his INC banner.

From a base in Iraqi Kurdistan he enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, he engineered an uprising against Saddam in 1995. The operation failed and the CIA dumped him.

By 1998, his political networking became successful enough to persuade former US president Bill Clinton's administration to list "regime change" in Iraq as one of its objectives, paving the way towards the 2003 war.

Two of his brothers, implicated in the liquidation of other financial institutions and suspected of having a hand in the Petra case, were found guilty of fraud in Switzerland in September 2000.

Since his break with the United States and the interim government, Ahmed Chalabi has been playing up his credentials - ahead of elections due in January 2005 - as an independent who stood up to the occupation authorities.