Terror-linked lawmaker faces arrest in Iraq

[David]

AP


BAGHDAD – An Iraqi Airways jet carrying a Sunni lawmaker accused of being a terror boss was ordered back to Baghdad on Wednesday, but authorities could only watch as the combative legislator slipped away before fellow parliament members stripped him of his immunity.

The boomerang voyage of Mohammed al-Dayni — whose flight was pulled back just as the plane was about to leave Iraqi airspace — capped days of friction between the Shiite-led government and the defiant lawmaker.

Al-Dayni made one last blitz of calls to journalists and supporters after the Jordan-bound jet returned to Baghdad, calling the charges part of a campaign to muzzle critics. Then he was gone — just hours before parliament called an emergency session to strip his immunity.

Almost immediately, authorities issued an arrest warrant for a wave of attacks that include a 2007 suicide blast in the parliament cafeteria and mortar strikes on Baghdad's Green Zone. By nightfall, al-Dayni was the target of a nationwide manhunt.

"We will keep chasing him, not only in Baghdad but anywhere else," Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told the state-run Iraqiya television.

Dozens of other Iraqi political leaders have been accused in the past of high-level corruption and links to violent groups. Some have fled the country to neighboring Jordan and Syria or stayed home, managing to keep the suspicions from turning into formal charges.

But few cases have created such a brash spectacle. And one that risks reopening some Sunni-Shiite rifts after U.S.-backed efforts for political reconciliation.

On Monday, al-Dayni held a news conference to shrug off the charges and lash out at the government, which he claimed was abusing its power to clamp down on dissenting voices. He has frequently spoken out against alleged rights abuses of Sunni prisoners and suspected Iranian influence over the nation's Shiite leaders.

Videotaped interrogations of two former bodyguards — one of whom is al-Dayni's nephew — were released last week, implicating him as the ringleader of a network with a nearly three-year legacy of violence. The nephew described riddling a man with bullets after he complained about their mortar attacks on the Green Zone.

Then defenders rallied to al-Dayni's side, including a Sunni party leader who called for al-Dayni to remain free until parliament opens a full-scale internal probe into all members — Sunnis, Shiite and Kurds — accused of links to sectarian violence.

Al-Dayni boarded the morning flight to the Jordanian capital, Amman, without any apparent difficulties. He claimed he was traveling to see family and not fleeing the country.

About 40 minutes after takeoff, the pilot received a call from a top government official asking him to return to Baghdad, according to a judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

"I am innocent ... and have parliamentary immunity," al-Dayni told The Associated Press by telephone after his plane landed back in Baghdad. "I am nervous, but I'm not afraid."

His mobile phone was later turned off as authorities came looking with the arrest warrant.

"We have notified all border crossings," said al-Moussawi, the military spokesman. "(Al-Dayni) is banned from leaving the country."

Iraq's government, meanwhile, welcomed reports of a U.S. combat troop withdrawal by August 2010.

"The Iraqi troops are ready to take responsibility. There is nothing to worry about, and the withdrawal will be carried out in coordination between the two sides," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, one of the Iraqi prime minister's top advisers.

President Barack Obama was expected to order all U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq by August of next year. An announcement by Obama could come as early as this week, a senior White House official told the AP on Tuesday.

Reaction among Iraqis was mixed.

"I have no trust that Iraqi security forces could maintain security because the army and security forces were built on a sectarian basis," sad Thabit Mohammed Jassim, a 40-year-old Sunni shop owner in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

But Hussein Jassim Mohammed, a 35-year-old Shiite from Baghdad, said he would like to see U.S. troops leave sooner rather than later.

"We hope the withdrawal will take place sooner, before the given timetable," he said, adding that it was "a good step for Iraqis to secure" their own country.

In Ankara, Turkey's foreign minister, Ali Babacan, said his country was willing to offer "support and help" for the U.S. pullout from neighboring Iraq. American forces have already sent convoys to Jordan and Kuwait to test possible exit corridors for troops and equipment.