BAGHDAD, Aug 11: Disgraced Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi returned to Iraq on Wednesday to face an arrest warrant for banknote forgery as his political party refused to vacate its entire Baghdad headquarters as demanded by the government.

"He is back home among his folks," senior Chalabi aide Mithal al Alusi said. "He will shower, have some tea and then resume his national duties." But judge Zuhair al Maliky, who issued the warrant for his arrest along with that of nephew Salam Chalabi over murder charges reiterated that nothing had changed.

"The arrest warrant still stands. Now it's up to the police and the interior ministry to execute it," he said. Despite earlier vacating one of the two buildings that make up its Baghdad headquarters, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) party vowed not give up the other, as laid down in a government eviction order.

INC officials moved out of a former Iraqi secret service building, but refused to leave the adjacent, so-called Chinese House, which used to belong to the ousted president Saddam Hussein.

"This villa is a symbol of democracy," said Alusi. "They would have to handcuff us and lead us and put us in the same cell as Saddam," he threatened earlier from the property in the upscale Mansur district. -AFP