Chalabi Should Be in Prison

[Franx]

Chalabi Should Be in Prison

Agence France Presse,

AMMAN, 18 August 2003 — A group of 21 Jordanian parliamentarians will call on Washington to extradite Ahmad Chalabi, a key US-ally on the Iraqi Governing Council, to serve out a 22-year prison sentence for fraud, Amman press reports said yesterday.

In a public motion, 21 MPs called for an extraordinary session of Parliament to discuss Chalabi’s involvement in financial irregularities and his extradition to Jordan via Interpol in order to serve his sentence.

Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, a pro-Western anti-Saddam Hussein faction which provided troops for the US-led war, built and lost a banking empire in Jordan in the 1980s.

After he was forced to flee the country in 1989, he was convicted in absentia of fraud and embezzling $288 million from Petra Bank into Swiss bank accounts.

Jordanian MPs now want him to face a second trial, on additional charges of defrauding the central bank and Petra clients of $900 million. The Jordanian press said MPs were ready to send a letter to the US administration and Congress, calling for his extradition to Amman to serve his sentence and face the new trial.

“We are collecting more signatures in the coming days and we will ask the government to send a request to the US administration to extradite Chalabi to Jordan via Interpol,” MP Mahmud Kharabcheh was quoted as saying.

Kharabcheh said an extraordinary session of Parliament will debate “the real causes of (Petra’s) collapse and the role played by Mr. Chalabi.” Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher has also accused Chalabi of financial irregularities in Switzerland and Lebanon.