Ex-Iraq power minister bails out Rezko

CHICAGO, May 2 (UPI) -- Iraq's former electricity minister-turned-fugitive put up $2 million in property equity to get a Chicago political funder accused of state bribes out of jail.

Aiham Alsammarae, who was accused of corruption and escaped from jail in Iraq in 2006, helped pay for part of Tony Rezko's bail using the $1.9 million in equity from a home in Oak Brook and $840,000 from two condominiums in Chicago's South Loop, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

The total bail amount was $8.5 million.

Alsammarae lived in Chicago until 2003 when he returned to Iraq. He has been accused by the Electrical Utility Workers Union of ignoring workers in exchange for foreign labor and purchasing equipment that was mothballed.

He was arrested and charged with corruption but escaped after four months in prison, with the help of U.S. contractors, he says, and now lives in Chicago.

Rezko has been charged with angling kickbacks from state contractors looking for deals with the state of Illinois. He also has raised funds for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. The Democratic Party presidential hopeful has donated the funds to charity. A photo of Rezko and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-.N.Y., also a presidential candidate, and her husband former President Bill Clinton has surfaced. Clinton says she doesn't know Rezko.

Rezko and Alsammarae were Illinois Institute of Technology classmates three decades ago and remained friends, the Sun-Times reports.

Rezko was accused by federal prosecutors in a private meeting with the Chicago case judge of paying a $1.5 million bribe for an Iraq electricity security deal and winning a $50 million deal in 2005 to train security officers at power stations in Iraq. He hasn't been charged for the alleged Iraq bribe.

He allegedly paid it through his new company called Companion Security while Alsammarae was minister.