sisyphusshrugged | Sally Jessie, your country has need of you in this hour...

OK, so at the bottom of the link dump on the war, I linked to a few stories about Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew and the fact that there are outstanding warrants for both in Iraq.

Ahmad, who was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in Jordan, is accused of counterfeiting

"I will not sit idle while these lies are circulated." Chalabi, whose exiled Iraqi National Congress is widely credited as one of the driving forces behind last year's US-led invasion but whose star has waned as it has met growing resistance, accused an unholy alliance of Saddam supporters and his newfound detractors in the Central Intelligence Agency of being behind the accusations against him.

The US last night declined to offer any help to Chalabi but urged Iraqi authorities to follow "due process".

The judge who issued the warrants said both Chalabi and his nephew Salem will be arrested the moment they set foot in Iraq.

"This is not a summons, they will be arrested the moment they return to Iraq and they will appear before an investigating court," Zuhair Al Maliky said.

The court will decide whether to refer them for trial by a higher tribunal, he added.

Chalabi is accused in particular of counterfeiting money, on felony charges which Maliky said had been brought by Iraq's central bank following raids on his home in May.

The central bank governor was not immediately available for comment.

Maliky said "significant sums of counterfeit Iraqi dinars", were found in Ahmed Chalabi's Baghdad home during a raid by the US military and Iraqi forces.

Salem, the nephew, who is the head of the tribunal which is going to try Saddam Hussein, is accused of murder

The accusations against Salem Chalabi relate to the murder of an Iraqi finance ministry official, Haitham Fadhil, on May 28.

"It was night, there was a knock at his door and his wife answered," Kamil al-Kaylani, who was Iraq's minister of finance at the time, said yesterday. "Two or three men said they wanted to talk to him, so he came to the door. They shot him dead and then they ran away."

In a country where so many government officials have met a similar fate, Mr Fadhil's death seemed unremarkable - except that he had been working on a report about reclaiming property owned by the government.

Among other things, according to the Los Angeles Times, his report said members of the Chalabi family and their party, the Iraqi National Congress, had illegally seized government property after the US-led invasion last year.

The paper quoted a source familiar with the investigation as saying Mr Fadhil had been "trying to get back those properties that belonged to the people".

The source reportedly continued: "He told his wife and a friend that he had received a lot of threats from Mr Salem Chalabi directly, who told him, 'You will not stay for long. We will get rid of you.'"

Ahmad blames the whole thing on the United States, who don't appear (officially, anyway) to be at any pains to prove him wrong

Though unproven, Mr. Chalabi's contention that the Americans may have been behind the move to arrest him was a serious shot in a struggle that could shape the political landscape as the country prepares for nationwide elections in January.

The charges against the Chalabis, especially those against Salem Chalabi, seemed to signal an open political fight with Mr. Maliky over the special tribunal set up to prosecute Saddam Hussein and senior members of his government.

The struggle also poses a troublesome issue for the interim Iraqi government, which has been working to shrug off accusations that the Americans retain extensive influence.

In his previous statements, Mr. Maliky has criticized the tribunal, which is run by Salem Chalabi. His issuing of the arrest warrant carries the risk that it will make him appear to be an ambitious politician angling for control of a potentially popular public institution as it takes up cases against Mr. Hussein's circle.

In a statement on Monday, Ahmad Chalabi responded to the arrest warrant by saying Mr. Maliky "is not a bona fide Iraqi judge, but rather an unqualified person who was put in his position by the American occupation authorities."

Salem Chalabi suggested in a telephone interview from London on Monday that his close relation to his uncle might have become an irritant for Iraqi officials, many of whom still view Ahmad Chalabi as too closely associated with the Americans. The association could be seen as tainting Mr. Hussein's trial, which will be watched closely by Iraqis for American fingerprints.

"People may be unhappy with my last name being Chalabi in this position," he said. "They do not distinguish between me and him. They don't feel that I'm trustworthy, because I'm his nephew."

In a telephone interview on Monday night, Mr. Maliky, who heads Iraq's national criminal court, dismissed Ahmad Chalabi's accusation that the arrest warrant was political, saying the investigation of Mr. Chalabi had taken months and that the case against him was legitimate.

"This is purely official Iraqi business," he said. "The Americans have no involvement in this. There is no politics in this order."

Mr. Chalabi's defense on the counterfeiting charge appeared to be bolstered later Monday when the governor of Iraq's Central Bank, Sinan alShabibi, told Agence France-Presse that the bank had never lodged a complaint of counterfeiting. But Mr. Maliky said a lawyer for the bank had signed a letter confirming that the bills in question were fakes.

"If the governor doesn't know what's happening in his office, it's not my problem," he said tartly.

Richard Perle, the Chalabis' friend in Washington, accuses the judge of being both an illegitimate jurist and a tool of Paul Bremer, the former American administrator

The arrest warrants were issued by Zuhair al-Maliki, the chief investigative judge of Iraq's central criminal court, who has now filed 14 warrants against members of Mr Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.

Richard Perle, a leading US neo-conservative, denounced the judge in June as a stooge of Paul Bremer, the American administrator of Iraq until the handover of sovereignty.

"He's a man of no consequence except he sits in Baghdad issuing arrest warrants for people who have for many years been fighting to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein," he told a Washington forum.

"He has been issuing arrest warrants without anything that could be called probable cause. His notion of due process includes threats to the counsel representing some of the accused."

Judge Maliki's relationship with Mr Bremer has raised eyebrows in Baghdad. The 38-year-old law graduate had no experience as a judge and worked as a translator for the Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Mr Bremer.

The coalition government had to amend one of its own laws - to drop a requirement that central criminal court judges must have at least five years' judicial experience - before it appointed Mr Maliki.

Iraq's central bank provided information yesterday that will assist Ahmad Chalabi. Judge Maliki said he had acted at the behest of the central bank after "significant sums of counterfeit Iraqi dinars" were discovered in Mr Chalabi's home in May.

But Sinan al-Shabibi, the bank governor, said: "The bank has not lodged a complaint against any individual regarding money counterfeiting and never requested that such charges be brought."

Ahmad Chalabi said that as the head of the former finance committee of the Iraqi Governing Council, he had collected "samples of counterfeit Iraqi currency". His supporters say this totalled 3,000 dinars, or little more than £1.

the judge is threatening extradition

The judge who issued arrest warrants against the controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem, the head of the tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein, yesterday denied the move was politically motivated and said he would pursue the extradition of the two men if they refused to return to Iraq.

Zuhair al-Maliky, the senior investigative judge at the central criminal court of Iraq, established by the US occupation authorities, told the Guardian: "I am simply the judge who signed the documents. Anything that either of the two wanted men have to say should be said in court in Iraq, and if they don't come here we have our channels and we will contact Interpol."

He declined to reveal the nature of the evidence that had prompted the charges, but said: "This is nothing to do with politics. We are trying to introduce the rule of law and these men must be questioned and if there is enough evidence they should go to trial."

but our great and good allies the british aren't going to hand Chalabi the younger over if they're asked, which so far they haven't been

The British Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it will not extradite Salem Chalabi. Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi war crimes tribunal trying Saddam Hussein, is wanted in Iraq in connection with the murder of a finance minister.

“We don’t have an extradition treaty with Iraq and we are not in a position to offer any help in matters like this,” said a Foreign Office spokesman.

Meanwhile Chalabi said that murder charges against him were aimed at undermining the trial of the former dictator.

Salem Chalabi and his uncle, leading politician and former Pentagon ally Ahmad Chalabi, were both the targets of arrest warrants issued by an Iraqi judge.

Salem Chalabi was accused of playing a role in the murder of a Finance Ministry official, while his uncle was charged with counterfeiting. “The charges are ridiculous,” Salem Chalabi told BBC during an interview at its studios in London. He said he had been accused of threatening a man who was later killed, but denied he had ever met him.

He said the judge who issued the arrest warrant had criticised the procedures established for trying Saddam.

“The fact that it was leaked means there was some element of a smear campaign against me, and therefore against the tribunal, trying to discredit the tribunal, which I think has happened now,” he said. “That’s what is troubling me. I want to go back and continue the work. There are a large number of staff still working, trying to do the investigations. But under these kind of allegations it makes it more difficult.”

He said he was in contact with Iraqi officials to receive assurances it would be safe to go home, but was worried for his safety if he were jailed.

“I plan on returning. I just want to get assurances that I will not be killed in jail or anything.”

Ahmad is currently "vacationing" in Iran, where you may recall that he has some contacts

Francis Brooke, a Washington adviser to Mr. Chalabi, said the charges against both men were categorically untrue and said both would return to Iraq to defend themselves. He said that the elder Mr. Chalabi would leave a vacation cabin in the mountains outside Tehran immediately and that the younger man would return to Iraq later from his home in London.

Meanwhile, Allawi's name is being raised as a possible mover behind the scenes

The man presiding over the new government, Ayad Allawi, is a longtime rival of Mr. Chalabi in Iraq and also within the corridors of the American government. The move to arrest the two Chalabis, whether justified or not, will no doubt give rise to fears that Dr. Allawi, the interim prime minister ahead of elections scheduled for next year, is carrying out a political vendetta.

Mr. Chalabi's first fall came in May, when the Iraqi police, backed by American forces, raided his home and headquarters in Baghdad. American officials said later that they believed that he might have passed classified American information to Iranian agents.

While Dr. Allawi emerged as the new American ally here last June, Mr. Chalabi and his group, the Iraqi National Congress, were all but excluded from the new government.

Meet the credible voices who brought us close to a thousand dead american soldiers and a destabilized middle east.