Iraq parliament speaker strikes MP at end of stormy session

Iraq’s parliament speaker slapped a fellow Sunni Arab lawmaker on the face today as he was leaving a stormy session in which he accused “three-quarters” of the house’s 275 members of involvement in sectarian violence.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani has a track record of violent behaviour and is given to making undiplomatic comments about MPS and members of the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

Some MPs have in the past accused him of running the chamber like a coffee shop.

Last year, he survived a campaign by Shiite and Kurdish politicians to have him removed following controversial comments in which he said Iraqis who killed American troops should be celebrated as heroes.

Al-Mashhadani is a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, parliament’s largest Sunni Arab bloc with 44 seats.

Today’s session began with a house clerk reading a report prepared by MPs who had visited displaced Iraqis in the southern city of Karbala.

Al-Mashhadani then asked that the report be referred to him and his two deputies, but Shiite MP Shazah Moussawi complained that the speaker was not taking the issue seriously enough.