almotamar.net - The Yemen parliament has Saturday voted again on the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court pursuant to a request letter signed by 50 members challenging the legality of the previous voting on 24 last March. Opponents to the Statute were able muster themselves in the absence of the head of the General People’s Congress parliamentary bloc Sultan al-Barakani who is a staunch supporter of the Statute. That led to canceling the endorsement of Rome Statute by agreement of 82 of present MPs against fifty of its supporters. That move created a tumult inside the parliament that forced chairman of the session Yahya al-Raee to adjourn the sitting for ten minutes.

Tension among the MPs on this qu3estion heightened to an extent that MP Abdulbari Dghainish accused MP al-Hazmi of deeming infidel those who supported the Statute during his last Friday prayers sermon to which al-Hazmi responded that he talked in general and apologized for any misunderstanding of his sermon.

MP Nabil Basha expressed his skepticism in correctness of the 50 MP’s request, calling the opponents to resort to judiciary as the parliament had decided the topic through its previous voting in favour of the statute and sent a message to the president of the republic asking completion of constitutional procedures related to endorsement.

MP Abdulkarim Jadban commented that re-voting means challenging in many parliament decisions because the majority of its decisions were taken with absence of 76 members of the parliament.