Report: Sunni speaker of parliament on 'indefinite leave' after ordering bodyguards to beat legislator

Mahmud Mashhadani

Iraq's parliament on Sunday sent its Sunni speaker Mahmud Mashhadani on indefinite leave after he allegedly ordered his bodyguards to beat up a fellow MP, a lawmaker said.

Mashhadani, known for his loud rhetoric in parliament, set his bodyguards on Fariyad Mohammed after a heated verbal exchange outside the parliament hall, according to lawmaker Abdul Karim Anizi.

"There was an argument between the bodyguards of the speaker and Mohammed. Mashhadani then ordered his men to beat the Shiite MP," said Anizi, from Iraq's ruling Shiite alliance.

Parliament then convened a session, he added, in which it was decided to "send Mashhadani on indefinite leave and ask his deputy Khalid al-Attiya to take over ... until a new speaker is elected."

Anizi said parliament also told the Sunni National Concord Front, the main Sunni political bloc in the 275-member parliament, to forward a new name for the post of the speaker.

Read the rest at France 24

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