BAGHDAD – The lawyer for a Hezbollah commander wanted by the United States says his client has been released from Iraqi custody and has been flown to the Lebanese capital, Beirut.



Lawyer Abdul-Mahdi Al-Mutairi says Ali Mussa Daqduq was released Friday from house arrest in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The lawyer did not provide further information.



The US believes Daqduq was the mastermind of a 2007 raid on an American military base in the Iraqi city of Karbala that killed five US soldiers.

Two Iraqi courts have found Daqduq not guilty and rejected the US request to extradite the Hezbollah militant.



The move was likely to anger the United States, which handed Daqduq over to Iraqi custody last December.



“There was no reason for his detention. Last night the decision was made to release him. He is out now and arrived in Beirut two hours ago,” lawyer Al-Mutairi said. “There are no charges against him in Iraq. His detention was political, not legal.”



Earlier this year, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Reuters he had received assurances from Iraq it would not release Daqduq, even though an Iraqi court had cleared him of the charges.



The fate of Daqduq became a source of tension between Baghdad and Washington last year as the US military prepared to withdraw from Iraq.



Daqduq was captured in March 2007 and initially said he was a deaf mute. US forces accused him of being a surrogate for Iran’s elite Quds force operatives and say he joined the Lebanese Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah in 1983. – Agencies