Chalabi - wanted for bank fraud, appointed head of Iraq oil ministry

World News Article | Reuters.co.uk:

"Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has assumed direct control of the powerful oil ministry as crude exports grind to a halt due to sabotage attacks and logistics problems, officials said on Friday.

Chalabi, who has been improving relations with Washington after previously falling out with the U.S. administration, was appointed acting oil minister after the incumbent Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum was given leave, the officials said."
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---There are also allegations of financial misdemeanours. In 1992, he was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison with hard labour for bank fraud after the 1990 collapse of Petra Bank, which he had founded in 1977.
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In May 2004, Mr Chalabi's home and offices were raided.

He denounced the raid, which he said was carried out by American agents and Iraqi police, as politically motivated.

There were whispers from Washington that Mr Chalabi had all along been duping the Americans by spying for the Iranians.

It appeared that he was being sidelined by Washington because he and his organisation were one of the sources for intelligence about Iraq's weapons of destruction capability that is now widely viewed as faulty.

In August 2004, Mr Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi has arrest warrants issued against them while they were outside Iraq.

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