Salem Chalabi, the man organising the trial of Saddam Hussein, was facing a murder charge himself on Sunday night after an Iraqi judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
Another was issued for his uncle Ahmed Chalabi, the founder of the Iraqi National Congress and a former key ally of the United States. He is accused of money laundering.
Both men denied the accusations, which they said were politically motivated.
Salem Chalabi, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, was named as a suspect for the murder in June of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry.
On Sunday night he said the allegations were designed to interfere with preparations for the trial of senior officials of the former regime.
If convicted he could face the death penalty, which was restored by the Iraqi interim government on Sunday.
It was unclear on Sunday night what impact the warrant would have on the trials of Saddam and other officials of his former regime.
Salem Chalabi, who is in London, said in February he thought it could be two years before Saddam appeared in court.
The US has handed Saddam over to the Iraqis for trial.
”The warrant for me has to do with the fact that apparently I threatened somebody. I have no recollection of ever meeting that person, but apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed,” he told CNN.
”I don’t think that I had anything to do with the charges so I’m not actually worried about it. It’s a ridiculous charge, that I threatened somebody. There’s no proof there.”
Iraq’s senior investigative judge, Zuhair al-Maliky, said that nobody in Iraq should enjoy immunity. ”They should be arrested and then questioned and then we will evaluate the evidence, and then if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial.”
Ahmed Chalabi is accused of counterfeiting Iraqi dinars removed from circulation after Saddam’s regime fell. The fake money was allegedly found in his house.
His spokesperson, Haidar al-Moussawi, said: ”Such a warrant has been issued, but no one called any of the accused or gave them a chance before issuing the arrest warrant. These are very bad indications about the state of justice and law in the new Iraq.”
Both men said they would return to Iraq to face the charges.
Ahmed Chalabi, attending a conference in Tehran, called the allegations ”outrageous” and ”manufactured lies”.
He told CNN: ”I’m now mobilised on all fronts to rebuff all these charges. Nobody’s above the law and I submit to the law in Iraq, despite my serious and grave reservations about this court. I have been fighting Saddam for many years and we survived that and we are certainly not going to be intimidated by this judge.”
On Sunday night Salem Chalabi described the charge against his uncle as ”weird”.
”It has to do with counterfeit money and I was told that when they raided his house a couple of months ago they found the equivalent of a few dollars in counterfeit dollars that he was given as head of the financial committee of the governing council,” he said.
The accusation against Ahmad Chalabi is a severe embarrassment to the US, which once considered him prime candidate to replace Saddam.
Washington has attempted to distance itself from him since it was suggested that he provided faulty intelligence about Iraq’s WMD capacity.
He did not get a job in the interim government.
Chalabi was recently accused of informing Iran that the US had broken its secret intelligence codes. He said the allegation was ”stupid”.
He is wanted in Jordan, where he was sentenced in his absence in 1991 to 22 years for fraud. He denied the charge.
Since being marginalised by the US, Ahmad Chalabi has refashioned himself as a Shi’ite populist.
Salem Chalabi was born in Baghdad and studied at the American universities Yale, Columbia and Northwestern, where he earned degrees in law and international affairs.
He served as a legal adviser to the interim Iraqi Governing Council and was a member of the 10-member committee framing the basic transitional law for the new interim government before taking on the role as organiser of Saddam’s trial. – Guardian Unlimited Â