U.S. officials send minister out of Iraq - sources
Source: Reuters
AMMAN, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A fugitive former Iraqi minister, with dual U.S. citizenship, flew to Jordan in an American plane after escaping from a Baghdad jail earlier this month, Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Bakheet said on Tuesday. "He came to Jordan as an American and on an American plane," Bakheet told reporters. He did not elaborate or say whether Ayham al-Samarraie, an electricity minister in the former Iraqi transitional government of Prime Minister Iyad al-Allawi, was still in Amman. Samarraie, who spent years in exile in the United States, was being held in Iraq on various corruption charges and was reportedly freed by armed, plain-clothes Americans. He said he was being victimised because of his opposition to Iranian influence in Iraq and Shi'ite militias, who are accused of killing thousands of members of his minority Sunni Arab sect. A Western diplomatic source familiar with the case and who requested anonymity said: "American secret service officials put him on board a U.S. military plane from Baghdad airport on Friday and brought him to Jordan". U.S. embassy spokesman Lou Fintor in Baghdad said Washington was not involved in the disappearance of Samarraie, facing trial in up to 12 corruption cases. "There is absolutely no truth to the reports whatsoever. ... We deny any involvement in Mr. Samarraie's disappearance from an Iraqi facility," he said. Another Jordanian intelligence source said American security officials were involved in the operation to whisk Samarraie out of Iraq. U.S. officials have said they were cooperating with Iraq in investigating how Samarraie escaped. Samarraie had been detained at a police station on the outskirts of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound that houses the Iraqi government and the U.S. and British embassies. He was convicted in October and sentenced to two years in jail for misuse of public funds. The conviction was overturned on appeal but he was being held pending the other corruption cases. (Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Baghdad)
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