Maliki orders committee be set up to investigate MP assassination

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gave instructions to investigate the assassination of Iraqi legislator Hareth al-Ubeidi and bring the perpetrators to court, according to a release by his office on Friday. “A committee is to be formed to detect the terrorist gang that assassinated Ubeidi,” read the release as received by IraqiNews.com news agency. “This coward crime is yet another bungled attempt to ignite sectarian sedition by terrorist organizations that have been receiving deadly blows by our armed forces,” it added. Earlier on Friday, the Kurdistan Alliance, the second largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, condemned the assassination of Ubeidi. “The deceased was one of the distinguished moderate lawmakers and was doing very good at the human rights committee,” KA spokesman Friad Rawndozy told IraqiNews.com. “I think we and the government should pause at this cowardly terrorist act and to start searching for the culprits and bringing them to justice,” he said. “In the name of the KA, we condole with ourselves and our brothers inside the parliament over the death of Ubeidi,” Rawndozy added. A security source said Ubeidi was assassinated by an unidentified gunman inside al-Shawaf mosque in Baghdad’s district of al-Yarmuk on Friday. “A gunman was hiding at one of the restrooms inside the mosque of al-Shawaf in al-Yarmuk, southwestern Baghdad, and opened fire from his Walther gun at Ubeidi, a legislator from the (Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front (IAF), who was then leading worshippers for the Friday congregational prayers,” the source told IraqiNews.com. “Ubeidi’s guards chased the escaping gunman but he blew himself up amidst them. The blast left the gunman and some guards killed,” the source added. The IAF had elected Ubeidi, a leading member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), by majority in early May to be the head of its parliamentary bloc in succession of the incumbent Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Iyad al-Samarraie. AmR (S) 1