BAGHDAD: The Iraqi television reporter jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush was freed on Tuesday and said he was tortured by electric shocks and simulated drowning while in custody.
Muntazer Al-Zaidi had been behind bars ever since he shouted it is the farewell kiss, you dog, at Bush last Dec. 14, seconds before hurling his size-10s at the man who ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Speaking at the office of his employer at the time of the incident, Al-Baghdadia television, Zaidi – who was missing a front tooth – said: I was tortured with electric shocks, beaten with cables.
The reporter s tone was defiant but he denied that he was a hero, saying he had been ashamed of the suffering he had seen in his country and had seized the opportunity to insult the man he held responsible.
For me it was a good response; what I wanted to do in throwing my shoes in the face of the criminal Bush was to express my rejection of his lies and of the occupation of my country, Zaidi said.
He added: At the time that Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki said on television that he could not sleep without being reassured on my fate … I was being tortured in the worst ways, beaten with electric cables and iron bars.
The 30-year-old reporter said he wanted an apology from Maliki, adding that his guards had also used simulated drowning on him – the technique of water-boarding used by the Americans on suspects arrested over the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
I am now free but my country is still captive. I am not a hero, but I have attitude and opinions, he said. I feel humiliated to see my country suffer, my Baghdad burning, and my people killed.
Television pictures earlier showed the reporter, wearing a sash in the colors of the Iraqi national flag around his shoulders, and sporting sunglasses and a thick beard, being led into the studios of his employer.
The journalist s family and friends ululated when they heard the news by telephone at their home in Baghdad. They have prepared a sheep for slaughter in celebration of his homecoming.
Zaidi was due to have been released on Monday but his brothers and sisters were left in tears when legal red tape delayed his homecoming.
Although the reporter s prison time had expired, Iraqi inmates often find their liberty held up for several days to allow the necessary prison release documents to be signed and approved.
Zaidi was initially sentenced to three years for assaulting a foreign head of state but had his jail time reduced to one year on appeal. His sentence was cut further on account of good behavior.
Although Bush, who successfully ducked to avoid the speeding footwear, laughed off the attack, the incident caused massive embarrassment, to both him and Maliki.
The leaders had been speaking at a joint press conference in Baghdad on what was Bush s farewell visit to Iraq prior to being succeeded in office by then president-elect Barack Obama.
Zaidi faces the prospect of a very different life from his previous existence as a journalist for Al-Baghdadia, a small, privately-owned Cairo-based station, which continued to pay his salary in jail.
Zaidi s boss has promised the previously little-known reporter a new home as a reward for loyalty and the publicity that his actions, broadcast live across the world, generated for the station.
But there is talk of plum job offers from bigger Arab networks, lavish gifts such as sports cars from businessmen, guaranteed celebrity status, and reports that Arab women from Baghdad to the Gaza Strip want to marry him.
Zaidi, from Iraq s Shia majority, was kidnapped in Baghdad and held by unknown captors for three days in 2007 and then detained for one day by US forces at the beginning of 2008, according to his brother.
The publicity that Zaidi garnered, however, means he is likely to be met by both adulation and bemusement among his countrymen, who were divided by his shoe-throwing gesture, considered a grave insult in the Arab and Muslim world. -AFP
