Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi said yesterday that warrants issued for their arrests by Iraq's Central Criminal Court were part of a political conspiracy trumped up by former president Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Ahmad Chalabi, a former Gov-erning Council member with strong US ties, was wanted in Iraq on counterfeiting charges, while Salem Chalabi, head of the special tribunal in charge of trying Saddam, faced an arrest warrant for murder, Iraq's chief investigating judge said on Sunday.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Both men, who were abroad, strenuously denied the charges and attacked Judge Zuhair al-Maliky, the man who signed the warrants on Saturday.
"He has consistently attempted to manipulate the justice system for political purposes," Ahmad Chalabi said in a statement yesterday.
Al-Maliky, he said, "is not a bona fide Iraqi judge but rather an unqualified person who was put in his position by the American occupation authorities."
Al-Maliky said on Sunday that the two men should be arrested and questioned.
"If there is enough evidence they will be sent to trial," he said.
Salem Chalabi said the murder charge would play into the hands of former Baathist officials, including Saddam, who is facing trial for war crimes before his nephew's tribunal.
"They can easily make allegations that this whole process is fraud because the director of the tribunal has all these charges against him. Initially I suspected that these charges were trumped up by Baathists," he said by telephone from London.
In Washington, the Bush administration had no comment about the charges against the Chalabis.
The warrant was the latest blow against the elder Chalabi, who has been pushed from the centers of power. A longtime exile opposition leader, he had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the US occupation ended.
Meanwhile, a firebrand Shiite cleric yesterday defied demands from Iraq's interim government that his militia pull out of Najaf, after days of fierce fighting with US Marines who claim to have killed 360 of his fighters.
Heavily armed Marines backed by aircraft tightened their noose around the holy city in heavy battles yesterday, but a senior US military official denied coalition forces were hunting the young cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr.
Sadr thundered defiance during a news conference at Najaf's holiest shrine, the Imam Ali mosque.
"The Mehdi Army and I will keep resisting. I will stay in holy Najaf and will never leave," Sadr said. "I will stay here until my last drop of blood."
The fresh Shiite uprising poses the most serious test yet for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi since he took over from US-led occupiers on June 28.
The US military official said Marines had killed at least 360 loyalists from Sadr's Mehdi Army militia since the uprising in Najaf erupted on Thursday.
Fresh clashes broke out in a Shiite district of Baghdad named after Sadr's father yesterday as well. The government imposed a curfew from 4pm until 8am until further notice in the sprawling Sadr City slum, home to 2 million people.
Explosions and gunfire echoed from the heart of Najaf. Smoke rose from near an ancient cemetery, scene of hand-to-hand combat in recent days, as US aircraft flew overhead.
Allawi visited the shell-scarred city on Sunday and demanded Sadr's militia back down. Sadr, a hero to Iraq's downtrodden Shiite youth, rejected the order to quit his hometown.
"In the presence of occupation, there are no politics," he said. "You can't twin democracy and occupation, you can't twin freedom and occupation."
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘ONE BRIDGE’: The US president-elect met with Akie Abe on Dec. 15 in Florida and the two discussed a potential Taiwan-China conflict’s implications for world peace US president-elect Donald Trump has described Taiwan as “a major issue for world peace” during a meeting with Akie Abe, the widow of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted sources as saying in a report yesterday. Trump met with Akie Abe on Dec. 15 at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where the two discussed the Russo-Ukrainian war and the situation in the Taiwan Strait. During the meeting, Trump spoke on the implications for world peace of a potential Taiwan-China conflict, which “indicated his administration’s stance of placing importance on dealing with the situation in
QUICK LOOK: The amendments include stricter recall requirements and Constitutional Court procedures, as well as a big increase in local governments’ budgets Portions of controversial amendments to tighten requirements for recalling officials and Constitutional Court procedures were passed by opposition lawmakers yesterday following clashes between lawmakers in the morning, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members tried to block Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from entering the chamber. Parts of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) passed the third reading yesterday. The legislature was still voting on various amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) as of press time last night, after the session was extended to midnight. Amendments to Article 4
ALLIANCE: Washington continues to implement its policy of normalizing arms sales to Taiwan and helps enhance its defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US President Joe Biden on Friday agreed to provide US$571.3 million in defense support for Taiwan, the White House said, while the US State Department approved the potential sale of US$265 million in military equipment. Biden had delegated to the secretary of state the authority “to direct the drawdown of up to US$571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement. However, it did not provide specific details about this latest package, which was the third of its kind to
RSS