Sri Lanka's Parliament votes to suspend two opposition members for misbehaving with Speaker

Sri Lanka's Parliament on Friday voted to suspend two of its Opposition members for misbehaving and insulting Speaker Karu Jayasuriya in July.

The motions against Wimal Weerawansa and Prasanna Ranaweera were adopted by majority vote for their suspension for two weeks. They were part of a parliamentary fracas in the mid-July when they raised the issue of alleged violation of the constitution by a Tamil state minister.

Both the members of the Joint Opposition were found to have led a rumpus in the Parliament on July 3 when the House discussed an allegedly inflammatory statement made by MP Vijayakala Maheswaran regarding the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a banned terrorist organization.

The two backers of the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa were accused of the bad behavior while disobeying the orders of the speaker.

Weerawansa, Ranaweera and other Opposition members moved Jayasuriya to suspend her from parliament. Jayasuriya said he could only take action against her after the due procedure.

The LTTE, which fought for the creation of an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the country. It was decimated by the Sri Lankan military in 2009 after the killing of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.