Iraq fugitive minister arrives in Jordan (on a US plane?)

[maddezmom]

AMMAN, Jordan - A former Iraqi Cabinet minister who escaped from a Baghdad prison this month has arrived in Jordan on a U.S. plane, Jordan's prime minister said Tuesday. Ayham al-Samaraie, a former minister of electricity with dual U.S. and Iraqi citizenship, was serving time for corruption when he escaped mid-December.


On Dec. 19, he called the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times and gloated over his escape, referring to U.S. and Iraqi officials in Baghdad as "suckers." He declined to tell the newspapers where he was, but said he was in a "a very safe place."

Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit told reporters Tuesday that al-Samaraie "arrived in Amman as an American and on an American plane," an apparent reference to a U.S. military plane. He did not elaborate on the official's escape from jail.

"Jordan did not receive any demand from the Iraqi authorities" for al-Samaraie's extradition, al-Bakhit said.

Lou Fintor, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the U.S. government was not involved in al-Samaraie's escape "in any way."

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/jordan_iraq_escaped_official

[Tempest]

1. If the U.S. government wasn't involved

How did he get on an AMERICAN MILITARY PLANE?

It's not like United Air Lines flies from Iraq to Jordan.

Did Southwest start regional service in the Middle East and forgot to tell anyone?

[lumpy]

2. He has dual Iraqi/US citizenship. The US administration

takes good care of their own poltical felons.

[maddezmom]

3. Where was he before he arrived in Jordan?

:shrug: I'm thinking Syria after reading the wiki entry

[Tempest]

4. Saudi Arabia

There was an article posted on Friday where he jumped a plane to Saudi Arabia from the Baghdad airport.

[maddezmom]

5. thanks, I missed it

:hi:

[Danieljay]

6. color me surprised. n/t

[maddezmom]

7. Lou Fintor, US Embassy in Baghdad denies charges about US Plane

~snip~
Lou Fintor, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the U.S. government was not involved in al-Samaraie's escape "in any way." He also denied in "unequivocal terms" the claim that al-Samaraie flew out of Iraq on an American plane.

"There is absolutely no truth to this," Fintor said. "This is absolutely incorrect, absolutely false."

Fintor said U.S. was supporting the Iraqi government's investigation into al-Samaraie's escape. He declined to say whether al-Samaraie, who has a home in the Chicago area, would be allowed to return to the United States.

In 2003, al-Samaraie became a member of the transitional Iraqi government that was set up after U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. He was detained in August, convicted of corruption and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The charges concerned an estimated $2 billion in missing funds for contracts on rebuilding Iraq's electrical infrastructure.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/jordan_iraq_escaped_official

[Barrett808]

8. U.S. officials send minister out of Iraq - sources

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".

(more)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26386901.htm