Trial of Iraqi 'shoe' journalist to begin in Baghdad
19/02/2009 09:34 MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - The trial of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at then-U.S. president George Bush in December is due to start in Baghdad on Thursday morning.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, 30, an Iraqi correspondent for the Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV channel, threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in mid-December and shouted in Arabic: "This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, dog." Bush managed to duck in time to avoid the shoes.
The journalist has been in prison awaiting trial since the attack.
The trial was originally scheduled to begin on December 31, but was postponed after al-Zaidi's lawyers appealed to the court to reduce the charges from "aggressive actions toward a foreign official," which carries a sentence of up to 15 years to "insulting a foreign official," which carries a sentence of up to two years. The court refused to change the charges.
A special committee, headed by the chair of the Iraq union of lawyers, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, has been formed in Iraq to defend the journalist.
According to al-Saadi, the "defense is leaning toward proving that al-Zaidi was merely protesting against the occupiers and their policies, which in civil law is simply the freedom of expressing one's own opinion."
The journalist's actions have turned him into a national hero in many Arab countries, including Iraq, where a 3.5 meter-high (11.5 feet) sculpture of a shoe was unveiled at an orphanage in the north of the country. However, the tribute to al-Zaidi was taken down after only a day following an order from the Iraqi government.
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