Iranian Diplomat Kidnapped Amid Fraud Charges Against Chalabi

BAGHDAD, Aug 9 (AFP) - An Iranian diplomat headed to serve in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala has been kidnapped amid growing tensions between the two countries and fraud charges against prominent Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi.
Chalabi, a former Pentagon protege who is currently in Tehran, told CNN television Sunday he had learned about an arrest warrant against him only from the press.
"They didn't inform my lawyer or office," he told the cable network. "I will return to face these accusations, I will go to court."
The former member of the Iraqi interim Governing Council described the charge as outrageous and "manufactured lies."
Chalabi, who heads Iraq's National Congress Party, was a protege of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon, but fell into disfavour in Washington. It was reported that senior US officials had alleged he was passing classified US intelligence to Iran.
An arrest warrant has also been issued in Baghdad against Chalabi's nephew, Salem Chalabi, for alleged involvement in the killing of a senior Iraqi finance official.
Salem Chalabi is head of Iraq's special tribunal, which is trying ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Currently in London, he also told CNN he would return to Iraq to defend himself.
A Baghdad investigating magistrate, Zuhair al-Maliky, told US-based Arabic-language Sawa radio he had issued the two warrants.
He said Ahmed Chalabi is accused of putting forged money into circulation and the nephew of implication in the killing of Haitham Fadel, director-general of the Iraqi finance ministry.
The judge had ordered their arrest, interrogation and prosecution if there was sufficient evidence for indictments.
Meanwhile, an Islamic group said Sunday it had "detained" an Iranian diplomat in Iraq for allegedly stirring sectarian strife, but Tehran expressed ignorance of the motives behind the kidnap.
A statement from the Islamic Army in Iraq read by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television channel said Fereydun Jahani was "detained for stirring sectarian strife and for activities outside his diplomatic duties".
Pictures were shown of the diplomat's passport, identity and business cards along with what appeared to be footage of him speaking, without sound, against a black backdrop.
The group accused Iran of "blatant interference in Iraqi internal affairs," the station said amid a war of words between Baghdad and Tehran.
Jahani disappeared on Wednesday as he was travelling to the central Iraqi city of Karbala to open an Iranian consulate following an agreement to do so by the Iraqi interim government, embassy charge d'affaires Hassan Kazemi Ghomi told AFP.
Relations between Iran and Iraq took another blow on Sunday, with Tehran saying it was not prepared to discuss serious issues with Baghdad's interim authorities.
Iran's foreign ministry said Sunday it was summoning Iraq's top diplomat over claims that four Iranian spies have been arrested in Baghdad, the latest accusation of Iranian interference in its neighbour's affairs.
"Today we are going to summon the Iraqi charge d'affaires to the Iranian foreign ministry, and we are going to ask him to give us proof," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters, saying Iraqi officials should also "stop creating a bad atmosphere" between Iran and Iraq.
Asefi also snubbed a call from Iraq's interim Defence Minister Hazem al-Shaalan, who has been widely lambasted in the Iranian press, that Tehran immediately return Iraqi planes sent to Iran before or during the 1991 Gulf War.
"We will discuss these (issues) with the coming elected government officials, and not with the interim government," Asefi said in a blunt snub.
Meanwhile, clashes continued for a fourth consecutive night between Iraqi police and radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army in Najaf and further south near Amara, where one Iraqi was killed in a skirmish with British troops.
Two US helicopters fired on Najaf's vast cemetery, where many fighters have hunkered down.
On a surprise visit to the Najaf, a day after extending an olive branch to militia leader Sadr by inviting him to run in upcoming elections, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made a fresh call for fighters to leave the holy city.
"The outlaws have to lay down their weapons and leave the city's holy sites including the Imam Ali shrine," sacred to the world's Shiite Muslims.
The US military estimates that 500 militiamen are pitted against more than 5,000 US troops, Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard, who have pounded Mehdi positions since the militia twice attacked a police station on Thursday.
More than 50 people have been killed and 300 wounded in bloodshed throughout Iraq over the past 24 hours, based on health ministry figures.
Sadr spokesman Sheikh Ahmed Shaibani said that 15 militiamen had been killed, dismissing US estimates that 300 fighters have been mown down in the four nights of fighting.
Faced with a persistent 16-month insurgency, a legacy of the 2003 US-led invasion, the caretaker government on Sunday reinstated the death penalty for murderers, drug traffickers and those endangering national security.
Mass killings, strikes against vital infrastructure and biological weapons attacks would also be punishable by death, Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said.
Capital punishment was legal under the former regime, and many Iraqis have demanded that Saddam Hussein, charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, be executed.