Iraq parliament strips outspoken liberal MP of immunity

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament stripped an outspoken liberal lawmaker of his immunity from prosecution Tuesday following accusations he praised Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, despite his long history of opposing the executed dictator.
A constant critic of Iraq’s endemic corruption, Fayeq Al-Sheikh Ali won a parliamentary seat last year after promising to counter Islamists’ efforts to ban alcohol in the country.
In a television appearance last month, he railed against Iraqi politicians in general, saying: “Let them hear me: Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr’s shoe is cleaner than all of them put together.”
A leading member of the Baath party, Bakr served as Iraq’s fourth president from 1968 to 1979, overseeing a period of economic revival before Saddam took over.
In contrast to current “lowly” politicians, Bakr and Saddam had distributed land freely, Sheikh Ali said.
The MP had himself gone into exile in the 1990s because of his opposition to Saddam and returned after the dictator was ousted in the US-led 2003 invasion.
But a host of MPs, most of them Islamist, said the comments amounted to “glorifying the Baath” — a punishable offense in post-Saddam Iraq — and voted on Tuesday to lift his parliamentary immunity.
One MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the move was also triggered by a personal spat with Hanan Al-Fatlawi, a former Shiite MP known for her divisive sectarian rhetoric.
“The immunity was lifted after a request from the public prosecutor over multiple charges, including glorifying the Baath and disputes” with Fatlawi, the lawmaker said.
The pair have traded barbs on Twitter that escalated so dramatically that Fatlawi’s tribe had to intercede.
In response to parliament’s move on Tuesday, Sheikh Ali — who has 140,000 followers on Twitter — posted a link to a traditional Kuwaiti song that translates to: “Happy Now.”