Arrest warrant issued for resigned trade minister

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A Samawa court has issued an arrest warrant for the resigned minister of trade, Abdulfalah al-Sudani, the chairman of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) said on Saturday. “Minister Sudani is currently at Baghdad International Airport, planning to fly to Dubai. The commission has contacted the airport and demanded the plane to be returned if it has taken off,” Sabah al-Saedi said in a press conference held today in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and attended by IraqiNews.com news agency. “Sudani has a dual nationality of British and Iraqi,” Saedi noted. “If he manages to arrive at a non-Iraqi territory and destroy his Iraqi identity, we will not be able to return him to Iraq to hold him accountable for his actions,” Saedi added, citing the former chairman of the CPI, Radi al-Radi, and the former minister of electricity, Iham al-Samarraie, as cases in point. A few days ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accepted Sudani’s resignation, which was tendered on May 14. Sudani was questioned by the Parliament for two days on charges of “administrative and financial corruption.” SS (S) 1