AMMAN, 13 May 2005 — Jordan is considering a request by Iraq to pardon Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi but would insist on the return of millions of dollars he was convicted of embezzling in a bank scandal, officials said yesterday.
They said Jordan’s King Abdullah told Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who had raised Chalabi’s pardon during a visit to Amman this week, that he was ready to review the conviction made by a military court in 1992.
But the monarch, who has the power as the ultimate legal authority to issue a royal pardon, made no commitments beyond that, an official said.
“There are legal and financial aspects that have to be addressed first,” another official involved in the case said. “The financial issues are complex and any settlement will include retrieval of sums that Central Bank had to pay to bail out depositors.”
Jordanian investigators estimated the missing bank deposits at $300 million.
A military court convicted Chalabi in absentia of embezzlement, fraud and breach of trust after a bank he ran collapsed in 1989 and shook Jordan’s financial system.
Jordanian investigators say they unraveled a web of gross irregularities at Petra Bank which Chalabi founded during a long residence in the country, involving the siphoning of depositors’ money to Chalabi’s offshore accounts.
Chalabi, who fled Jordan as the scandal broke, has denied any wrongdoing and says the charges were politically motivated.
The pardon would lift a sentence of 22 years hard labor against the man who was once one of the most influential figures in Jordan.
The controversial politician’s resurgence as deputy prime minister in Iraq’s first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 had forced the matter onto the agenda of bilateral ties, officials said.
“All the lingering issues between Jordan and Iraq were discussed and we reached a gentleman’s understanding that Chalabi’s case has to be resolved and it’s more pressing now that he is a senior member of the government,” a senior Iraqi official said in Amman.
Jordanian officials have said they respected the will of the Iraqi people after the government was announced last week. Chalabi was sworn in as one of four deputy prime ministers.
