By Khetam Malkawi

AMMAN - A deputy and an e-newspaper writer on Tuesday filed police complaints against each other following a fight in which both reportedly suffered injuries.

Nidal Faraaneh, who writes for the Rum news website, claimed that MP Khalil Atiyyeh (Amman, 1st District), attacked him yesterday, injuring his forehead and causing a hairline fracture to his skull.

Faraaneh, who was hospitalised following this fight, said the deputy accused him of spreading false rumours.

“I was sitting in the House speaker’s office waiting to meet him, when Atiyyeh came in and started to call me names, then threw an ashtray and a stapler at me,” he told The Jordan Times.

But Atiyyeh told reporters earlier in the day that Faraaneh was planning to attack him first.

“He wrote false stories and unethical news about me… I was asking him about this when I noticed an ashtray in his hand, so I picked up a stapler and threw it at him before he hit me,” Atiyyeh explained.

The MP, who was also hospitalised, said he is suffering from a rapid heart beat.

According to one of his relatives, Atiyyeh is currently under intensive care.

Faraaneh, however, rejected the deputy’s accusations.

“Nothing of what Atiyyeh has said is correct… if he is telling the truth, let him present evidence,” he said, insisting that he had not written any “unethical story” about him.