Obama To Donate Contribution From Rezko’s Iraqi Friend

Aiham Alsammarae is a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen, and Iraq’s former “Electicity Minister”. He posted more than $2.7 million in property to help spring Tony Rezko from jail. How’s that for friendship??

He also donated $2300 to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. Barack Obama will be donating Mr. Alsammarae’s contribution to charity now. Seems fair, right?

Alsammarae — a friend of Rezko’s since their days as classmates at the Illinois Institute of Technology — once was accused of corruption in Iraq, but he broke out of a Baghdad jail, returned to the U.S. and has since said the charges against him have been vacated.

Being the Obama-Skeptic that I am, you just know I had to find out more about who Aiham Alsammarae is besides Iraq’s former Electricity Minister who was charged with corruption in Iraq, escaped from jail, bailedout his smarmy friend Rezko and contributed to Barack Obama’s campaign.

It didn’t take long to find out that, among other slimey activities, Rezko is accused of giving Alsammarae a $1.5 million bribe for the electrical contracfor the electrical contract to train Iraqi power plant security guards. Friends are wonderful things, aren’t they?

My search also took me to a December 21, 2006 New York Times pice and the story of the incarcerated Alsammarae and his subsequent escape to that wonderful bunker for domestic terrorists, foreign millionaires of dubious activities, Black Separatist ministers and other assorted scum balls: Chicago.

OAK BROOK, Ill., December 20 – It was an

unremarkable scene on Wednesday outside a gated community here where the former Iraqi electricity minister, Aiham Alsammarae, now a fugitive from justice, keeps a palatial house.

Having escaped from a Baghdad jail over the weekend in what he boasted was the “Chicago way,” Mr. Alsammarae, whose whereabouts are unknown, could have been on the way back here.

Mr. Alsammarae, who holds dual American and Iraqi citizenship, moved to the Chicago area in the late 1970s but returned to Iraq just after the American-led invasion.

He was jailed four months ago on corruption charges related to deals made when he was the electricity manager, from August 2003 to May 2005.

Not a bad deal hey? 4 months in jail for $1.5 million? Where do I sign up?

Apparently, Mr. Alsammarae wasn’t too thrilled with America at the time of his escape to Illinois either:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 19 — In a lengthy phone conversation on Tuesday, the former Iraqi electricity minister who escaped from a Baghdad jail on Sunday ridiculed American and Iraqi officials and said he fled because he did not trust the police and had received a tip that he would be assassinated within days.

I guess all of Mr. Alsammarae’s deals when he was Iraq’s Electricity Minister were pretty lucrative, considering the “palatial” description of his home in Illinois. It sure looks like Tony Rezko gave that home a little Jump Start doesn’t it?

Safe and sound in Good Old Chicago, Mr. Alsammarae had this to say:

Despite the charges against him, Mr. Alsammarae said he did not believe that the American authorities would arrest him in Chicago. “I hope they are smarter than that,” he said.

So, basically, Mr. Alsammarae is just one more of those fine upstanding Duel-Citizenship people of dubious activity who seem to gravitate toward Barack Obama. Alsammarae is just another one of those “regular guys” in the Obama Camp.

In any event, I guess we can assume that, like Tony Rezko, Mr. Alsammarae likes Barack Obama a lot. It must have something to do with that Hopey Changey thing.

The Obama campaign says Alsammarae made an “online” contribution, which of course frees them of any responsibility for the receipt of money from this upstanding citizen. And of course, Barack Obama doesn’t recall ever meeting Auchi Alsammarae.