A three-judge panel in Iraq yesterday ordered the arrest of former U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi. Ahmad Chalabi, who had close ties to Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon, was charged with counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars. On Sunday Chalabi spoke to CNN from Tehran and said he would return to Iraq to respond to the fraud charges. This is not Chalabi’s first run-in with the law. In 1992 he was convicted in Jordan for bank fraud in a scandal that lose the Jordanian government hundreds of millions of dollars. He remains a wanted man in Jordan.

His nephew, Salem, has been charged with murder in connection with the assassination of a top official from the Iraqi Finance Ministry. Salem is heading up Iraq’s special tribunal trying former president Saddam Hussein for war crimes. He has also denied the charges against him.