The following originated with information gathered by Chicago blogger Bill Baar and has been expanded and updated a number of times in order to reconcile various accounts of events. 
Aiham Alsammarae (Ahyam al Sammarai) was appointed July 13, 2003, as Iraq's Minister of Electricity by L. Paul Bremer, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. A Sunni Muslim and a citizen of both Iraq and the United States, he is under investigation for setting up a deal to loot Iraq's powerplants with Rezko.
In April 2003, Alsammarae, "owner of KCI Engineering Consultants, a Downers Grove electrical engineering firm," told the Chicago Tribune that there was a "massive demand for new power sources in Iraq" because following the "first gulf war, Iraq's generating capabilities have been slow to recover." Iraq needed "a minimum of 12,000 megawatts, according to a report Alsammarae helped prepare for the U.S. government as part of its reconstruction planning."
Background
Alsammarae had been "described as a midlevel member of Saddam Hussein’s governing Baath Party as a student in the 1970s." In the 1990s, he resided in the United States where he "spent several years in exile" and attended college. He was Antoin "Tony" Rezko's classmate at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Nibras Kazimi of the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., wrote October 11, 2006:
Al-Samara’i, a Sunni Arab, was a leading Ba’athist among the Iraqi student community in Britain in the 1970s, and several of his security reports on his fellow students had surfaced within the archives of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. His brother-in-law was a member of the Ba’ath Party leadership but was purged and executed by Saddam in 1979, thus putting Al-Samara’i in bad odor with the regime.
Al-Samara’i is also a board member for several Arab-American groups.
A U.S. Department of State publication dating from 2003 described Aiham Alsamarrae as the "owner of an electrical engineering consulting firm with clients in Canada and the Midwestern and Northeastern United States." In 2003, Alsamarrae served as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He said "I am one of the 65 Iraqi opposition figures elected in London. I believe I was identified for the working groups because I was Iraqi, in opposition, with technical expertise. They really sought out expertise." In 2004, he served as a member of the Iraqi Interim Government.
The New York Times reported December 15, 2006, that Alsammarae had "arrived in Iraq just after the American invasion in 2003, looking for business opportunities. He was originally appointed electricity minister by L. Paul Bremer III, the leader of the American occupation authority, in August 2003. He stayed on until May 2005 in the Iraqi government that followed, run by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi."
Alsamarrae claims role of Iraqi group leader
On June 8, 2005, the Washington Post reported Alsammarae said he leads a new, predominantly Sunni political group called the Iraqi National Council Front. Alsammarae said that he had "initiated a dialogue" with the insurgent groups the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujaheddin Army. He said he "had held at least 10 meetings with their leaders in the past four months in his Baghdad home" and that they "were willing to enter negotiations with U.S. and Iraqi officials."
Additionally, the Post reported:
Alsammarae's account of the reconciliation talks could not be independently verified. He said he had broached the subject with U.S. officials here and in Washington during a visit there [in May 2005], as well as with the Iraqi government.
"We've met with him in the past, and we welcome any Iraqi who wants to encourage dialogue and political participation and reconciliation in Iraq and who promotes the concept of rejecting violence as a political tool," said a U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad who spoke on condition he not be named. "This is a matter to be discussed with the Iraqi transitional government," he added.
Tom Hayden reported August 16, 2005, in the Los Angeles Times that Alsammarae was "talking with 11 insurgent groups about a transition to politics."
The Hudson Institute's Nibras Kazimi wrote October 11, 2006:
It should be noted that after leaving office, Al-Samara’i took on the role of a mediator between some insurgent groups and the Americans, and has met in this capacity with National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Bush’s advisor on Iraq, Meghan O’Sullivan. He may have had meetings with persons even higher up the chain. Time to check the White House visitation logs, people.
Allegations of corruption had been hovering around Al-Samara’i early on in his tenure at the ministry, but it was presumed that no one would touch him because of his connections in Washington. His arrest and subsequent prosecution was an incredibly positive milestone for anti-corruption efforts in Iraq. This latest incident, however, bodes very badly for all involved and will greatly embarrass Maliki’s cabinet.
Furthermore, it will be interesting to see who else will get implicated should Al-Samara’i actually end up serving time, and maybe striking some sort of deal with the prosecution to reduce his term.
The Washington Post reported July 1, 2005, on Operation Sword in which U.S. and Iraqi forces made a sweep looking for weapons and insurgents—"overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Arabs"—through Anbar Province in Iraq, with dozens being arrested.
Two days earlier, on June 29, 2005, Alsamarrae announced that members of his Sunni political organization "would include some Iraqis with links to insurgent groups." The following day, "three insurgent groups -- the Ansar al-Sunna Army, the Mujaheddin Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq -- distributed a statement at a mosque in Hit saying they were not involved with Alsammarae's organization and had not taken part in talks with U.S. or Iraqi officials. The statement threatened Alsammarae with death.
"'All the resistance groups decided to shed the blood of Aiham Alsammarae because he claimed that he is the mouthpiece of the resistance,' the statement said. 'We will not talk to the occupation forces except with one language, which is the language of weapons. We promise to continue on our path and will negotiate with the occupier when we see their vehicles leave Iraq.'"
Convicted for corruption
Alsammarae became the "only cabinet-level Iraqi official to be convicted and jailed for misusing money during his time in office." The New York Times reported December 15, 2006, that in August 2006, "hearing that he was being accused of corruption, he walked into a Baghdad courthouse to find out if there were charges against him and was astonished to find himself placed under arrest pending trial."
On October 11, 2006, the "first of the counts against him, involving payments for a single electricity generator in the southern Iraq," was overturned.
An employee at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq confirmed that the 23-member appeals court had unanimously overturned the conviction but said that under Iraqi law, Mr. Alsammarae might have to remain in jail until the other charges against him were resolved.
Mr. Alsammarae’s case is caught in an extraordinarily complex web of events that include American-sponsored efforts to fight official corruption and to improve the Iraqi court system while at the same time allowing the courts to operate independently of American influence. Mr. Alsammarae also faces the burden of having long been suspected of corruption by Iraqi and American officials, and he has been the target of lashing criticism for years in the Iraqi news media.
Escapes in Iraq
On January 17, [2007], in a taped interview with Alsamarrae by CNN's John Roberts played on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Alsammarae details his departure from Iraq:
Iraqi officials say he is a fugitive. But Aiham Alsammarae was back at work in his Chicago area engineering firm today. ...
ROBERTS: What Alsammarae did was break out of an Iraqi jail in Baghdad's green zone, then flee the country. He had been the electricity minister in Iraq's interim government, even met President Bush in the Oval Office. Last October [2006], he was convicted on corruption charges and sent to prison. He appealed and won. The conviction was overturned in December [2006] and Alsammarae claims he was ordered released. But when officials said he would be transferred to another jail for processing, Alsammarae, a Sunni and a U.S. citizen, bolted. ... The escape, however, had been long planned. Alsammarae fled to the Baghdad Airport, changing cars three times, then took a private jet that had been waiting for him for a week there from Jordan. There, he got a new U.S. passport from the embassy, and after doing some business in Dubai, flew back to Chicago.
The State Department was well aware of his escape. But because DHS didn't know of any outstanding warrants against him, he was allowed back into the country. Alsammarae admits he has five more cases pending against him in Iraq, but claims he made bail and that a judge who wants him returned to Baghdad has sectarian motives.
ALSAMMARAE: All of these accusations are coming from him. He's politically motivated and he's working with militia right now. And before, he was working a Ahmad Chalabi, and both of those guys are my political enemies.
ROBERTS: The escape is an embarrassment for the State Department, which was quick to insist U.S. officials did nothing to help Alsammarae leave Iraq. The Iraqi government has not yet asked for him to be extradited, and it's not clear if the U.S. would even hand him over.
For his part, Alsammarae is proclaiming innocence and vows he will voluntarily go back to Iraq to face both the remaining charges and fight a government, he says, is increasingly hostile to Sunni Muslims."
On August 27, 2007, Baar cited another acount of Alsamarrae's alleged escape from Iraq which had been published that day in the Chicago Tribune:
Eight months after Aiham Alsammarae escaped from a Baghdad jail and returned to his home in suburban Chicago, an Iraqi judge has thrown the book at him, sentencing the former electricity minister in absentia to 21 years in prison in a corruption case.
Yet Alsammarae, an Oak Brook resident who had gone back to his native Iraq to serve in the government after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, isn't exactly hiding at home. He says he recently returned to the maelstrom of Iraqi politics, traveling to Jordan to join other Iraqi officials in forming an opposition front as he continues to insist on his innocence.
Reached on a Jordanian cell phone, the Iraqi-American dual citizen, 55, said he is in Amman meeting with Iraqi political leaders in an effort to counter what he says is Iranian influence in the Shiite-majority government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has been prosecuting him.
It appears that Alsammarae also staged two attempts to "escape" from Iraq. In August 2006 Alsammarae had been incarcerated in Iraq "on corruption charges stemming from deals made when he was the electricity minister from August 2003 to May 2005," Baar wrote January 24, 2008. Alsammarae "had been awaiting sentencing on charges that he had embezzled $2.5 billion that was intended to rebuild Iraq's decrepit electricity grid."
On December 18, 2006, he made his second escape from his Baghdad prison although his lawyer said "he had been released on bail in accordance with an appeals court ruling on [December 14, 2006,] overturning a corruption conviction earlier [in the] year." As in the first escape attempt in October 2006, he was facilitated "by members of a security company he had hired to protect him prior to his arrest. ... After al-Samaraie's first escape, a few days after his conviction, Iraqi officials caught him at the Baghdad airport with a Chinese passport."
Blackwater USA
The "security company" that helped Alsammarae to escape was the controversial private military corporation Blackwater USA, headquartered in North Carolina but which has a facility in Mount Carroll, Illinois. McClatchy Newspapers wrote September 17, 2007: "But the accusation that Blackwater, which earned at least $240 million in 2005 from contracts to provide security to U.S. officials in Baghdad, assisted in his escape raises questions about what American officials might have known about the breakout."
Rezko's power plant in Iraq
Rezko's security contract in Iraq
Baar also cited the August 7, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times, which wrote:A security company owned by a now-indicted political fundraiser is trying to secure a lucrative contract in Iraq, even seeking the help of Illinois leaders including Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a published report.
Companion Security is owned by Antoin "Tony" Rezko and former Chicago police officer Daniel T. Frawley, ... Patrick Goodale, a contractor with the company, said Rezko was one of Frawley's original partners.
Companion Security was awarded a $50 million contract by Iraq's Ministry of Electricity [in 2005] to train Iraqi power-plant guards, but the deal was left up in the air by a leadership change in Iraq. Now, the company is lobbying officials in Washington and Baghdad trying to revive the contract, according to documents obtained by the Sun-Times. ... Frawley wants the Iraqi government to honor a contract signed when Aiham Alsammarae, a friend of Rezko's, ran the country's electricity agency. The current electricity minister has said the contract is too expensive, according to a U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad.
Blagojevich, a longtime friend of Rezko, has tried to help the company by offering the lease of a military facility in western Illinois. Spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff told the Sun-Times that the governor's staff didn't know Rezko was involved with Companion Security until the newspaper started asking questions.
Frawley also sought help from Obama, another friend of Rezko's, but was turned down.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Companion Security asked Obama to write a letter introducing the company to senior officials in the Iraqi government.
It is unclear from the media account what kind of relationship Frawley had with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) that led him to believe that Obama would be able to help him. It is equally unclear what kind of relationship existed between Obama, if any, with the Iraqi government that would have carried any clout or leverage for Frawley and Rezko.
No answers will be forthcoming in the near term from Rezko, who will remain incarcerated in a Chicago jail until his March 3, 2008, trial date. The status of this particular misadventure, or the role it may (or may not) eventually play in his federal prosecution by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, will have to wait, as well.
Contacting / questions for Obama
On December 29, 2006, Baar reported that Aiham Alsammarae's daughter, Dania Alsammarae, had contacted the offices of Sens. Dick Durbin (R-Ill.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "for help securing her Father's release." Additionally, Baar wrote, "The next question for Senator Obama to consider, should the Senate start investigating post-War Iraq, was why in the world Bremer appointed Alsammarae as Electricity Minister in the interim government given his [2000] pre-War position towards sanctions?"
Updates: This October 2002 article published at alraqi.org states: "Aiham Alsammarae is part of an earlier wave of successful Iraqi professionals who [emi]grated in the 1960s and '70s before Hussein came to power.
He owns an international engineering company specializing in electrical power systems. He arrived in 1976 to get his Ph.D. in engineering and couldn't return to Iraq when Hussein took over."
Also see: Aamer Madhani, Joseph Ruzich, and Nadeem Majeed, Oak Brook engineer fears Iraq prison time. Ex-electricity minister: `I will certainly be killed', Chicago Tribune, October 15, 2006.
