Iraqi MP charged with Parliament bombing

An Iraqi lawmaker is likely to face terrorism charges after newfound evidence linked him to the 2007 bombing of the country’s parliament.

Mohammed al-Daini, a member of the National Dialogue Front, has emerged as the prime suspect in the suicide bombing that wiped out an entire section of the Shiite-dominated parliament in April 2007.

The blast, which killed eight people and injured more than 20 others, came at a time when Iraq was grappling with internal chaos and bloodshed in the wake of the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

“The suicide bomber entered [the parliament] with an authorization paper from Mohammad al-Daini and blew himself up at the Parliament,” confessed his nephew, Riad Ibrahim al-Daini, who was arrested earlier this month during a raid in west Baghdad.

According to Riad Ibrahim, his uncle also masterminded a slew of heinous crimes, including mortar attacks, burying victims alive, kidnappings for ransom, and robbing gold stores.

Riad Ibrahim said his uncle had provided a security team of 15 men with government badges to implement his various demands — one of which was an order to “kill Christian jewelers in the Mansur district (of central Baghdad), steal their gold and hand them over to Daini”.

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Al-Daini’s chief of security Alaa Maliki —who was also arrested in the raid— said the security team had abducted more than 100 people in Iraq’s Diyala province as part of mob-like efforts to silence Al-Daini’s political opponents.

The charges were brought against the hard-line Sunni lawmaker by the spokesman for Baghdad’s military security command, Major General Qassem Atta Moussawi, in a Saturday press conference.

Al-Deini, who remains free because of legislative immunity, has rejected the accusations as baseless and politically-motivated.