[JURIST] White House spokesman Tony Snow Wednesday called for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [BBC profile] to act on the case of Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, a Shiite lawmaker who US military intelligence [New York Times report; CNN report] says was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in 1984 for his role in a series of car bombings at the US and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. Mohammed was elected to parliament in December 2005 and is alleged to back Shiite-led violence. He currently enjoys parliamentary immunity. Snow told reporters at a White House press briefing: "the one thing we've made clear with the Iraqi government, and the Prime Minister has made clear, is that you have a situation now where you have a government that's committed to peace. And people who are operating outside the law committing acts of violence, you're going to need to deal with them."

The 1983 embassy bombings killed six people and injured 80 more. Seventeen people were subsequently arrested and convicted in Kuwait for their roles in the attacks. AFP has more.