COPENHAGEN -- A former Iraqi Army chief who in March escaped house arrest in Denmark where he was suspected of committing war crimes is in Iraq and is politically active, his son told Danish daily Politiken on Tuesday.

Nizar al-Khazraji, a former head of the Iraqi Armed Forces, fled Denmark on March 17, reportedly with the help of the CIA. He had been under house arrest in Denmark since November 2002 on charges of taking part in chemical weapon attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

"We have learned that he is in Iraq, that he is doing well, and that he is involved in political work," his son Ahmed said as carried by AFP.

He said he had not spoken directly with his father, but that he had received the information from people he trusted.

"When he wants to speak to us, he will contact us. Now we are happy to know he is alive," Ahmed said, denying rumors that Khazraji was killed in Basra at the end of the Iraq war.

The general was head of the Iraqi Armed Forces during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 but fled to Jordan in 1995. He received political asylum in Denmark in 1999.

Danish newspaper BT said on March 22 that Khazraji, believed to be the highest ranking officer to have defected from Iraq and touted by U.S. media as a possible successor to ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, had escaped with the help of the CIA.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last week however that the United States was not planning to give Khazraji a role in the new interim administration in Baghdad.

Danish Justice Minister Lene Espersen, who came under fire from the opposition for Khazraji's disappearance, has on two occasions written to U.S. authorities asking for any information on his disappearance and whereabouts.

She has yet to receive a response.