An Iraqi judge, Zuhair al-Maliki, has issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Chalabi, a former Governing Council member, and his nephew Salem, head of the tribunal trying former president Saddam Hussein.

Ahmad Chalabi was once the Pentagon's favourite candidate to lead Iraq, but fell from favour in the weeks before the occupation ended in June.

He is accused of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars, which were removed from circulation after the regime's ouster last year.

Salem Chalabi is a suspect in the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry.

"They should be arrested and then questioned and then we will evaluate the evidence, and then if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial," Maliki told Radio Sawa.

Both men, who are out of the country, denied the charges, dismissing them as part of a political conspiracy.

"I'm now mobilised on all fronts to rebuff all these charges," Ahmad Chalabi told CNN from Tehran, Iran.

"I don't think... that I had anything to do with the charges so I'm not actually worried about it," Salem Chalabi told CNN from London.