Iraq Accuses Sunni Lawmaker Of Bomb Attacks

`Parliament respects the Iraqi judiciary and would never interfere in the judicial process,` Khalid al-Attiya said.

The government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is seeking the arrest of a Sunni politician accused of masterminding a string of attacks including a suicide bombing inside the Iraqi parliament.

Officials have asked parliament to lift the immunity of Mohammed al-Daini, a member of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, after issuing a warrant for his arrest and detaining two of his bodyguards, said Qassim Moussawi, a military spokesman.

Moussawi broadcast tapes at a news conference of the bodyguards, Riyadh Ibrahim al-Daini and Alaa al-Maliki, apparently recounting their involvement in kidnappings, mortar attacks and car bomb attacks ordered by Daini.

"When 11 of Daini's security guards were killed ... he asked militant groups to abduct about 100 people -- he wanted 10 people for each of his guards," one of the guards, who is also Daini's nephew, said in what Moussawi called a "confession".

Daini's nephew said his uncle was involved in the suicide bombing in 2007 that killed eight people in parliament in the heart of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The bodyguard said they picked up a "guest" at Daini's office and dropped him off at a hotel in the Green Zone. He said the bomber used Daini's identity card to enter parliament and then blew himself up in a cafe.

Security forces went door to door in the same Green Zone hotel on Sunday evening, a source at the Interior Ministry said, searching in vain for the politician.

Reached earlier on his cell phone, Daini said he would respond in a news conference on Monday: "They have the right to say anything they like and I have the right to give my answer."

"UNLAWFUL ARREST"

The lawmaker has condemned what he called the unlawful arrest of his guards.

Just before the parliamentary attack in 2007, Iraqi security forces raided Daini's offices. Daini said between 25 to 30 employees were arrested.

The bodyguards said he ordered sectarian killings in his home region of Diyala, an ethnically mixed province northeast of Baghdad, along with the displacement of Shi'ite families from certain parts of Baghdad.

Maliki, from the religious Dawa party, has moved more aggressively in the last year after gaining confidence in military campaigns against Shi'ite rivals last year and as U.S. political power in Iraq becomes less pronounced.

Khalid al-Attiya, a Shi'ite Muslim who is heading the Iraqi parliament, said no official request to lift Daini's parliamentary immunity had been received.

"Parliament respects the Iraqi judiciary and would never interfere in the judicial process," he said.

Iraqi officials also said they had arrested 12 people believed to be behind the 2006 killing of the sister of Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni who is one of Iraq's two vice presidents.