Ex-minister faces arrest for 'biggest robbery in the world'

IRAQ'S former defence minister is expected to be arrested in the coming days in connection with the disappearance of more than $1 billion from the country's defence budget, a senior corruption investigator said yesterday.

Hazim Shaalan, who served in interim prime minister Iyad Allawi's government, ran a ministry which worked with intermediaries, rather than foreign companies or governments, for the supply of defence equipment including helicopters, armoured vehicles, bullets and weapons.

Not only were contracts with intermediaries forbidden at the time, but the prices paid for the equipment were vastly inflated and the contracts often not fulfilled. On one occasion, it is alleged more than $230 million had been spent on a collection of 28-year-old, second-hand Polish helicopters whose design life was just 25 years.

Radhi al-Radhi, the head of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, said he handed a file of evidence against Shaalan to Iraq's central criminal court two months ago and expected a warrant for his arrest to be issued within ten days.

"What Shaalan and his ministry were responsible for is possibly the largest robbery in the world," Mr Radhi said. "Our estimates begin at $1.3 billion and go up to $2.3 billion."

Shaalan, who lives in Jordan and also spends time in London, has denied any wrongdoing and has said that whatever he did was ultimately approved of by US authorities.

Amer Hantouli, an aide, said: "These are politically motivated charges by his enemies. They are trying to distract the public from their glaring failure to improve security in Iraq. It's quite a low tactic. Defence ministry committees oversaw all deals and followed procedure."

The current defence minister, Saadoun Dulaimi, said that when he took over in April there was next to nothing left of the $1 billion budget for procurement.