MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) -- A congressman who was accused of bigamy
                  brought a pistol to the National Assembly on Friday, fired several shots and
                  threatened to kill himself before handing over the gun to a priest.

                  Congressman Marlon Boanerges Castillo, 41, held off friends and relatives for
                  almost five hours and fired several shots before turning the gun over to the Rev.
                  Amado Pena, said Msgr. Eddy Montenegro, Roman Catholic vicar-general of
                  Managua.

                  Castillo, appearing exhausted, then left the chamber while hugging his wife,
                  Carolina Moreira. Police, congressmen and medical personnel followed.

                  The assembly was not in session and only a few other people were in the
                  chamber when Castillo entered. Police closed off the area around the National
                  Assembly and were trying, aided by other congressmen, to persuade Castillo to
                  put down the weapon.

                  "Nobody has been able to get near him," said Congresswoman Angeles Rios after
                  leaving the chamber. "The situation is dangerous because he is shooting at
                  anything he sees."

                  Earlier this week, a woman asked the assembly to strip Castillo of his
                  congressional immunity so that she could file charges of bigamy against him.
                  She claims that Castillo is actually German Antonio Alvarez Urbina, whom she
                  married 20 years ago and with whom she had two daughters.

                  The woman, Maritza del Carmen Sequeira Morales, said she had thought Alvarez
                  had died in 1984 while fighting for the U.S.-backed Contra rebels against the
                  leftist Sandinista government of the time.

                  Castillo had denied the charges, claiming that Sequeira was trying to blackmail
                  him. He said he had been married twice and was divorced from his first wife.

                  Sequeira had shown reporters photographs of herself with Alvarez and produced
                  a copy of their wedding certificate. She claimed that Alvarez changed his name
                  in 1986 and obtained a new birth certificate.

                  A local newspaper Friday published an interview with Alvarez's father, a farmer
                  identified as Eulalio Alvarez, who was quoted as confirming that the
                  congressman was his son and saying he had recently met with him.