Samir Sumaidaie

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Samir Shakir Mahmoud al-Sumayda'i (Samir Sumaidaie) is an Iraqi politician and the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. He was born in Baghdad and left Iraq to study electrical engineering at Durham University in the United Kingdom in 1973. He returned to Iraq in 1977 but left again for the UK in 1979 after Saddam Hussein seized power. He was appointed as Iraq's ambassador to the United States in May 2006, after previously serving as the Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (from July 2004), and prior to that, as Baghdad's Interior Minister. He is also a Sunni Muslim.

Following the invasion of Iraq he was appointed a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. On 9 April 2004, he was became Minister of Interior and in August 2004 he was appointed Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. In April 2006 he was appointed Iraq's Ambassador to the United States. [1]

In July 2005 Sumaidaie demanded an inquiry into the fatal shooting (which he has described as "cold-blooded") of his cousin during a routine house to house search by US Marines in Iraq.