BAGHDAD —  Iraq's chief prosecutor said Monday a trial would begin within days for two former Health Ministry officials accused of diverting millions of dollars to Iraq's biggest Shiite militia and allowing death squads to use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings.

Former Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili and Brig. Gen. Hameed al-Shimmari, who was in charge of the ministry's security force, were arrested after Iraqi soldiers stormed their offices in separate raids in February. The two are both Shiites, accused of links to the Mahdi Army _ a militia loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Iraq's chief prosecutor, Ghadanfar Mahmoud, told The Associated Press that al-Zamili and al-Shimmari would stand trial "within days" in eastern Baghdad. The proceedings will be open to the public, he said.

"The investigative judge has finished his investigation, and he decided that there is enough evidence to try them," Mahmoud said. "The court will decide their fate."

On Saturday, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the decision to send al-Zamili and al-Shimmari to trial was made by judicial authorities, not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite who won office in part because of support from al-Sadr's followers, is under strong U.S. pressure to crack down on Shiite militias. He has said no one is immune from arrest or prosecution during a security operation to rid Baghdad's streets of gunmen from both Islamic sects.

Al-Dabbagh said the trial of the former officials would underscore the prime minister's view that even al-Sadr's followers were not above the law.

"A lot of problems occurred in the Ministry of Health while they were serving," al-Dabbagh said at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone. "There is no favor for them because they are Sadrists."

At the time when al-Zamili and al-Shimmari worked at the Health Ministry, it was one of six Cabinet posts controlled by the Sadrists. Since then, al-Sadr's loyalists have resigned their Cabinet posts over al-Maliki's failure to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Without mentioning the two officials by name, the U.S. military has said they played a role in the deaths of several ministry officials, including the Sunni director of health in Diyala province. The director, Ali al-Mahdawi, vanished in June 2006 after coming to Baghdad for a meeting at the ministry.

A U.S. military statement issued after al-Zamili's arrest said the official _ without mentioning him by name _ was believed to have siphoned millions of dollars from the ministry to the Mahdi Army "to support sectarian attacks and violence targeting Iraqi citizens."

A U.S. spokesman at the time, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, said militiamen were also allowed to use government hospitals and clinics to gather information on Iraqis seeking treatment and "those Iraqis that were discovered to be Sunnis would later be targeted for attacks."

U.S. officials had long complained that al-Sadr's followers were transforming hospitals into bases for the Mahdi militia and were diverting medicine from state clinics to health care facilities run by the cleric's movement.

The clinics helped al-Sadr build a powerful nationwide political movement modeled in part on the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

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