Federal prosecutors are seeking to extradite Amer Ahmad, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s former City Hall comptroller, from Pakistan, where Ahmad fled — using a fake passport — after pleading guilty last year to public corruption charges in Ohio.
Ahmad, 39, has admitted in Pakistani court that he forged documents to flea to his parents’ homeland. He remains jailed in the city of Lahore.
It’s unclear whether the extradition papers filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus mean Ahmad will be back here anytime soon. A top official with the Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan’s version of the FBI, told the Chicago Sun-Times last month that Ahmad could be sentenced to prison in Pakistan for illegally attempting to enter the country.
A spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment.
The “affidavit in support of extradition of Amer Ahmad” filed Wednesday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Squires notes that Pakistan has agreed to extradite individuals convicted of bribery under a 1935 treaty between the U.S. and United Kingdom. Ahmad pleaded guilty to “federal program bribery” and money laundering charges in December stemming from a previous job as Ohio’s deputy state treasurer.
The United Nations Convention Against Corruption also calls “for extradition in cases of bribery and corruption of public officials,” according to Squires’ affidavit.
Shortly before he was indicted last summer, Ahmad abruptly resigned his $165,000-a-year job in Emanuel’s administration. He is not accused of any wrongdoing involving his City Hall job.
He had been living in Chicago with his wife and children before going on the lam in the spring. He was arrested in Pakistan in April with a fake Mexican passport, a forged Pakistani visa and thousands of dollars in cash in an apparent attempt to avoid U.S. prison time.
Amer Ahmad extradition affidavit