Escapee from Iraq prison back home
A former Iraqi Cabinet minister was home in suburban Chicago, a month after escaping from a Baghdad prison where he was serving time on corruption charges.
Ayham Samaraie, the former minister of electricity, arrived at O’Hare International Airport aboard a flight from Jordan. He has both U.S. and Iraqi citizenship.
Samaraie was serving a two-year sentence on charges concerning about $2 billion in missing funds for contracts to rebuild Iraq’s electrical infrastructure when he escaped from an Iraqi-run jail. A spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Baghdad said additional charges were pending against him.
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