Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s most publicly available fugitive held a news conference in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, announcing his plans to return to Chicago rather than the Baghdad jail he freed himself from last month.

Aiham al-Sammarae, the former Iraqi electricity minister who escaped from an Iraqi-run jail inside Baghdad’s fortress-like Green Zone on Dec. 17, told reporters at a Dubai hotel that he “didn’t break any U.S. laws” and denied he was a fugitive from justice.

Al-Sammarae, a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen and engineer who lived outside Chicago for many years, was jailed last year on corruption charges and accused of misusing about $2 billion as electricity minister. He told reporters that he left Iraq because he was afraid for his life and that he would go to the United States if he was assured he would not face legal issues.

“All indications are that I can return,” he said.

The Iraqi government insists it will attempt to bring al-Sammarae back to Baghdad, according to government spokesman Ali Dabbagh.

“There are many cases against him, and he should face these ones,” Dabbagh said. Speaking of the U.S. government, Dabbagh said: “It is their job and their duty to ask al-Sammarae to come back in a different way if he is not coming back on his own.”

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor declined to comment about whether al-Sammarae would be allowed to live freely in the United States. But Fintor said that although an Iraqi court overturned his conviction, “we understand that there are additional charges against Mr. al-Sammarae.”

Violence continues

More than 35 other people were killed in Iraq on Monday in scattered shootings, bombings and mortar attacks, according to Interior Ministry officials.

The national police also found 24 unidentified bodies at a cemetery near Haifa Street in Baghdad, where the Iraqi army clashed with insurgents last week. They had been shot in the head and exhibited signs of torture, said Brig. Salim Hassan of the Interior Ministry.

The violence in Iraq has precipitated a massive exodus of refugees, the largest displacement in the Middle East since the flight of Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday requested $60 million in additional funds to help deal with Iraq’s refugee crisis. About 1.7 million Iraqis have been displaced within their country, and as many as 2 million have fled Iraq, the agency estimates.

The additional money would help pay for “the most urgent needs, which are shelter and food and medical care,” said Said Arikat, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Iraq.