Iraqi parliament speaker refuses to resign; threatens to sue

Jun 13, 2007, 13:51 GMT

Baghdad - Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani has refused to resign despite being suspended from parliament over an assault incident, Iraq media reported Wednesday.

Iraq's parliament had last Monday voted to give al-Mashhadani a 'long vacation' after Al-Mashhadani's bodyguards allegedly beat a deputy with no intervention from the speaker.

The Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) was given one week to name his replacement.

Al-Mashhadani called the parliament's decision 'a violation of the law,' threatening to go to court if the parliament stands by its position. 'I refuse to resign,' he was quoted as saying by Voices of Iraq news agency Wednesday.

The MP who was assaulted,Friad Mohammed Omar, belongs to the Kurdish Alliance List.

The Kurdish deputy and the bodyguards had a verbal argument at first, but then their argument turned violent when the two sides started a physical fight.

'Is it logical that the head of the parliament be suspended because of a mistake of one of his bodyguards?' wondered al-Mashhadani at a press conference Tuesday. He described his suspension as 'the dictatorship of the majority.'

The parliament, meanwhile, has decided to leave First Deputy Speaker Sheikh Khaled Attia in charge of parliament's affairs, pending the naming of a replacement.

The IAF, the party that nominated al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Muslim, is the bloc that is authorized to name his substitute.

The Kurdistan Coalition is the second-largest bloc in the 275-seat Iraqi parliament, with 55 seats. The IAF has 44 seats, making it the third-largest.