BAGHDAD, Aug 10 (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Tuesday gave the party of disgraced Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi 24 hours to leave its Baghdad headquarters, the interior ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Sabah Khadim insisted that eviction orders would follow against other parties which he said had seized state property after the fall of Saddam Hussein`s regime in April last year, but acknowledged that this was the first.
"They will be returned to the ministries that owned the buildings before," he said.
"This is the first one (and) this is the order of the prime minister."
An official from Chalabi`s Iraqi National Congress party charged that the order was part of a continuing conspiracy against the group, after its leader was charged with banknote forgery late last week.
"We were notified this afternoon that we must evacuate our Baghdad offices within 24 hours," said Mithal al-Alusi.
"The order was signed by the Iraqi government and delivered to us by an American soldier. The conspiracy continues."
Alusi said about 70 party members had gathered at the INC`s headquarters in Baghdad`s upscale Mansour neighbourhood to protest at the order.
He said no US military or Iraqi security forces were outside the offices.
The eviction order came one day after an Iraqi judge said Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem would be arrested the moment they set foot back in their homeland to answer charges relating to money counterfeiting and murder respectively.
The arrest warrants against the Chalabis were issued on Saturday by judge Zuhair al-Maliky of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, set up under the now dissolved US-led occupation authority.