BAGHDAD, Feb 3: A top Shia candidate to become Iraq's next prime minister on Wednesday branded the interim government of premier Iyad Allawi the most corrupt in Iraq's history.

Hussein Shahrastani, a former nuclear chemist who was jailed by Saddam Hussein's government, also said Sunnis should be granted the presidency in a gesture to the disgruntled minority.

But Mr Shahrastani lashed out at the Allawi government and singled out Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan as the main offender. "It is very well known in the country that the corruption is very widespread from the police to the judicial systems... As a matter of fact Iraq has never known the level of corruption prevailing now," Mr Shahrastani said.

"A lot of public funds have gone missing under the Coalition Provisional Authority... and even now," he said, of the disbanded US occupation authority. Mr Shahrastani took Mr Shaalan to task for the defence ministry's transfer of 300 million dollars to Lebanon as part of an arms deal last month.

"The fact that the minister of defence, on the day there were four suicide bombings in the capital, spends all his day at the airport trying to take a few hundred million dollars of cash out of the country before the elections doesn't speak very well for the government's performance."

The charges have already been raised by another leading member of the front-running Shia coalition list, Ahmed Chalabi. The defence minister threatened to arrest Mr Chalabi last month over the comments.

Mr Shahrastani, who spent 10 years in the dreaded Abu Ghraib prison for refusing to work on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons programme, vowed the next government would review all suspect contracts made under the Allawi cabinet.

"One thing we are going to pursue is that all suspicious contracts should be properly examined and any funds that have been misused should be returned to the public... and these things should be explained to the Iraqi people."

As he took Mr Allawi's cabinet to task, Mr Shahrastani joined efforts to reach out to the Sunni community by guaranteeing them the presidency in the next government.

"If the Sunnis feel the post of the presidency is very important to assure them that they are recognized as equal partners in the government then we are happy to accept that and allow them to put (forward) what they think are suitable candidates," he said.

"Yes absolutely, if it's important to them we'll be glad to consider it and give it to them," Mr Shahrastani said. The nuclear scientist is described as a confidant of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the Shia spiritual leader backing the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

Mr Shahrastani is said to have brokered the alliance between the different Shia groups. Speaking of Kurdish demands for the presidency, he said: "We refuse the concept of ultimatums and such conditions that this has to be given to the Kurds, the Sunnis or the Shias, or they won't join the process.

"We have to accept the principle we want to work together and we have to accommodate all," he said. Mr Shahrastani also denied any formal deal had been struck to split the posts along communal lines.

One of his rivals for the post of prime minister, Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, did not rule out the possibility of a Kurd clinching the presidency.

Iraq's interim President Sheikh Ghazi al Yawar said on Tuesday it had been agreed in principle to give the post of premier to a Shia, the presidency to a Sunni and the two deputy president posts to a Kurd and a Shia.

Mr Yawar added the position of national assembly speaker would be given to a Kurd. Mr Shahrastani said the UIA, which includes major Shia groups like Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would win more than 40 per cent of the seats in the new 275-member national assembly. -AFP