Former Iraq minister denies theft of millions (“one of the largest thefts in history”)

[sabra]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1497038.ece

Former Iraq minister denies theft of millions

<snip>

Hazem Shaalan, a small businessman in London until Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, rose in a year to one of the most important jobs in the interim government that ran Iraq from 2004 to 2005.

He left Baghdad before the next government discovered that a fortune had been looted from his ministry’s account in what one senior investigator has called “one of the largest thefts in history”.

...

Documents obtained during an official Iraqi investigation and seen by The Sunday Times suggest otherwise.

An investigators’ audit of the ministry during Shaalan’s tenure found that $1.7 billion went into its account at the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad before vanishing into a Jordanian account.

...

Allawi said last week: “We were given no support either from the United States, or the UK or any of the Arab countries.

“The only explanation is that too many people in positions of power and authority have profited from this or, if they went to court, it would be too embarrassing for those who supported them.”

[louis-t]

1. Jordanian account? Who has ties to Jordan?

Why, Chalabi, of course! Who knows how to manipulate Jordanian banks? Why, Chalabi, of course!