US embassy cable - 03AMMAN6518

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 006518 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA, NEA/ARN, AND L/LEI 
JUSTICE FOR OIA 
FBI FOR OIO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/13/2013 
TAGS: PREL, CJAN, PTER, US, JO 
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR ASKS PM TO PRESENT EXTRADITION TREATY 
TO PARLIAMENT 
 
REF: AMMAN 6398 
 
Classified By: Amb. Edward W. Gnehm for reasons 1.5 (b)(d) 
 
1.  (C)  The Ambassador on October 9 asked Prime Minister Ali 
Abul Ragheb to submit the U.S.-Jordan bilateral extradition 
treaty to Parliament for approval and work to bring it fully 
into force.  Abul Ragheb was aware of the Ambassador's 
earlier request to the Foreign Minister (ref), and, in fact, 
reached for a file containing several memos about the treaty. 
 Commenting that King Hussein had seemingly ignored some of 
the legal points in the file when he signed the decree 
bringing the treaty into force in 1995, he said that he would 
have to study the file to see whether there was a need for 
any further internal or bilateral discussions on the treaty. 
He promised to respond to our request as soon as possible. 
 
2.  (C)  COMMENT:  The Prime Minister did not flinch when 
asked to submit the treaty to Parliament -- but did not 
promise to do so, either.  When the Ambassador queried him on 
possible political objections to the treaty in Parliament, 
Abul Ragheb responded (jokingly) that the treaty would "pass 
in a day" if he told MPs that he could use it to request the 
extradition of Iraqi National Congress President and Iraqi 
Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi (who is under felony 
indictment in Jordan for bank fraud). 
 
Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at 
 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ 
 
or access the site through the State Department's SIPRNET 
home page. 
GNEHM