Ex-Iraq minister flees police station, how much longer before its Saddam

[madokie]

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Private guards in SUVs helped Iraq's former electricity minister escape from a police station just outside the heavily fortified Green Zone where the dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen was being held on corruption charges, officials said Monday.

Ayham al-Samaraie, who had escaped once before after being convicted in October, walked out of the detention facility Sunday with private security experts who once protected him, said Faris Kareem, deputy head of Iraq's Public Integrity Commission.

Kareem said the security agents were "foreign," but provided no further details.

It was the second high-profile escape in chaotic Iraq this month. On Dec. 9, Ayman Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein serving a life sentence for bomb-making, escaped from a prison in northern Iraq aided by a police officer, authorities said