Parliament ousts Speaker Mashadani

Mahmud Mashhadani

Iraq's parliament voted today to oust its speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a day after one of his bodyguards allegedly roughed up another lawmaker, legislators said...

The legislators took action after an incident in the parliament building lobby Sunday morning, when legislator Firyahd Mohammed, a Shiite, was pushed by Mashhadani's guards, said Firyad Rwandzi, a spokesman for the Kurdish alliance in parliament.

"He said, 'Please don't push me. I am an MP [member of Parliament] and it is not respectable behavior for you to do it,' " Rwandzi said. " 'After that they hit him two or three times, and pulled him toward Mashhadani's office, where they put him in a room by himself for 15 minutes.' " Parliament then convened a closed-door session without Mashhadani present, and decided he would resign or they would vote on his removal, legislators said.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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