Report: Maliki moving for prosecution of top Sunni lawmaker Janabi

Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi of the Janabi tribe. In 2004, as battles raged in Fallujah, he gave an interview to Newsweek in which he said, 'We pray the insurgents will achieve victory’.

BAGHDAD, March 8 (Reuters) - Iraq's supreme judicial council has asked parliament to lift the immunity of an outspoken Sunni lawmaker on suspicion of links to insurgents, the parliamentarian and his political bloc said on Thursday.

Abid-Naser al-Janabi accused Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- with whom he argued earlier this year -- of being behind the move, but Maliki is currently trying to promote dialogue between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs to reduce sectarian violence.

Janabi, a member of the Accordance Front, the main Sunni political bloc in the government, said the prime minister was trying to silence his critics by "inventing these lies and fabricating information to accuse me".

The judicial council's action against Janabi could hamper Maliki's efforts to promote reconciliation and dialogue between his majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam Hussein but now feel marginalised.

Janabi, speaking by telephone from Syria, vowed to return to Iraq within days to face the accusations against him.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

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