BAGHDAD, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Citing lack of evidence, an Iraqi judge dropped charges of counterfeiting against former exiled leader Ahmad Chalabi Monday.
Judge Zuhair al-Maliky told the New York Times in a telephone interview if more evidence emerges, the case will be reopened against Chalabi, a longtime rival of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi who leads the interim government.
The government announced the counterfeiting charge against Chalabi in August while he was on vacation in Iran, in what appeared to be a move by Allawi to keep Chalabi out of the country.
But Chalabi returned to Iraq and denounced the government and aligned himself with Shiite religious leaders.
Once favored by the Bush administration to be Iraq's first leader after Saddam Hussein's fall, he apparently fell from favor. U.S. and Iraqi forces raided his Baghdad house in May on suspicion he had leaked secrets to Iran. Then, Maliky issued arrest warrants for Chalabi in the counterfeiting case and for his nephew, Salem Chalabi, in a murder case.
