- Jordan has said a prison cell still awaits Washington's
former Iraq favourite Ahmad Chalabi in the kingdom where he was convicted
in his absence of embezzling millions in a bank scandal.
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- US troops and Iraqi police raided Chalabi's home and
office in Baghdad on Thursday, marking an ignominious fall from grace for
the one-time exile who helped make the case against Saddam Hussein and
was once touted by US officials as a possible Iraqi leader.
-
- US officials had earlier said they cut off funding to
Chalabi, a member of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council.
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- "Chalabi was sentenced in Jordan and he is wanted
for the verdict to be carried out," Jordanian government spokeswoman
Asma Khadir told Reuters on Sunday. She did not say if Jordan was actively
seeking the former banker's extradition.
-
- Chalabi was convicted by a Jordanian court in 1992 of
embezzling millions from Petra Bank whose 1989 collapse shook Jordan's
political and financial system, forcing it to spend in excess of $400 million
to bail out depositors.
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- Hard labour awaits
-
- A sentence of 22 years hard labour awaits the man who
was once one of Jordan's most influential figures.
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- Chalabi, who fled the country as the scandal broke, denies
wrongdoing and says the charges were politically motivated.
-
- Jordanian authorities say they unravelled a web of gross
irregularities at Petra Bank, which Chalabi founded and ran during a long
residence in the country, involving the siphoning of depositors' money
to Chalabi's offshore accounts.
-
- A Jordanian member of parliament, who last year headed
a parliamentary campaign demanding the government seek Chalabi's extradition
from Iraq, said he would renew the request.
-
- Demanding extradition
-
- "Last year, we called on the government to extradite
Chalabi but we felt that the authorities refrained from entering into battles
at the time," Mahmud Kharabsha said.
-
- Jordan has not sought to have Chalabi extradited because
of legal and political concerns.
-
- "Chalabi has the right to appeal the verdict which
was issued in absentia. He can defend himself," said Kharabsha, also
a lawyer.
-
- Chalabi says he was made a scapegoat for years of corruption
and mismanagement in Jordan that triggered a currency collapse and precipitated
an economic and political crisis in 1989.
-
- He has accused Jordanian officials of framing him under
pressure from Saddam. The ousted Iraqi regime's financial dealings built
fortunes for many Jordanians.
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- Denial
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- Meanwhile, Chalabi staunchly denied allegations that
he passed sensitive US secrets to Iran. "I've never passed any classified
information to Iran," he told the Fox News Sunday television programme.
-
- A US official said on Friday the United States is investigating
evidence Chalabi gave sensitive information to Tehran. "This charge
is false," said Chalabi, who accused Central Intelligence Agency Director
George Tenet of putting out the charges against him.
-
- "I have never received a US classified document
and I have never had a US classified briefing," said Chalabi.
-
- The Los Angeles Times, citing US officials, said on Sunday
evidence indicated that Chalabi's intelligence chief gave Iran's intelligence
ministry "highly classified information" on US operations in
Iraq, including troop movements, top-secret communications and Coalition
Provisional Authority plans.
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- 'Lacking foundations'
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- Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Riza Asifi on
Sunday said: "These espionage allegations are obviously lacking any
foundations." Chalabi said he met with Iranian officials "about
a month and a half ago," but denied giving Tehran classified information.
-
- "We meet people from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad
regularly as do all members of the (Iraqi) Governing Council," he
said.
-
- On ABC television's This Week, Chalabi called the accusation
a "smear" and said he was prepared to challenge Tenet and the
allegations against him before the US Congress.
-
- "Let Mr Tenet come to Congress, and I am prepared
to come there and lay out all the facts and all the documents that we have,
and let Congress decide whether this is true or whether they are being
misled by George Tenet," he said.
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8CC5C9E4-7F39
-46DC-AF91-235F4ACBDBE1.htm
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