Mar.19, 2010, 03:25:34 GMT

Manama, Bahrain - Bahraini authorities detained and charged a cabinet minister with money-laundering crimes said to have amounted to millions of dollars after raiding his home and office.

The minister, who was only identified as an official in an Interior Ministry statement, was taken into custody and interrogated Thursday by security services before he was presented to the Public Prosecution Office.

Security and government sources confirmed that the official is a minister, the first accused of criminal wrongdoing in the Gulf island state since it gained independence from Britain in 1971.

According to the Interior Ministry, the official is accused of running a money-laundering operation that was carried out in Bahrain and abroad.

Brigadier Rashid Bu Humood, the ministry's assistant undersecretary for legal affairs, said the suspicious activities of the official came to authorities' attention in early 2009 and they had been monitoring him and his aides ever since.

Sources told the German Press Agency dpa that a number of Western European agencies were among the foreign security services that had cooperated with Bahrain to uncover the scheme.

In May 2008, the detained minister, who was earlier a member of the appointed upper house of the National Assembly, was one of two ministers to be quizzed by parliament over financial, administrative and constitutional irregularities before they were cleared.

The 55-year-old continued to head the public services-related ministry he was appointed in charge of since late 2006 for five more months after his May questioning before was moved out of it and appointed as a minister of state in a limited cabinet reshuffle.