Iraq ex-trade minister arrested, plane turned round

By Muhanad Mohammed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Police on Saturday detained Iraq's former trade minister in connection with graft allegations involving food rations, ordering a plane in which he was flying to Dubai to turn back, witnesses and officials said.

An Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for former Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany on Saturday, but he had already boarded a plane to Dubai, parliament's anti-graft watchdog said.

A passenger travelling on the same plane as Sudany said it was turned around about half an hour into the flight.

"The captain told us we had to go back to Baghdad because of congestion at Dubai airport," passenger Abdul-Muhsin Salem said, adding that about 250 other travellers were on board.

"On arrival, he (the minister) was taken by two plain clothes security officers from the plane in Baghdad airport. They were very polite. He wasn't handcuffed or anything."

A Reuters reporter had earlier seen Sudany at Baghdad airport. His bodyguards denied he was going anywhere.

Sudany resigned this month over a corruption scandal relating to Iraq's public food ration programme, one of the world's biggest.

The scandal, in which millions of dollars meant to buy food imports were embezzled or taken in kickbacks by officials in Iraq's Grain Board and in the ministry, has already led to the arrest of one of Sudany's brothers and the flight of another.