The Iraqi journalist shoe-tossing tantrum-thrower will spend a little time in the hoosegow.
The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at then-President George W. Bush was convicted Thursday of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced to three years in prison. He defiantly shouted “long live Iraq” when the sentence was read.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s bold act in December electrified many across the Middle East who consider him a hero for expressing his anger at a president who is widely disliked for his decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The 30-year-old journalist pleaded not guilty to the assault charge Thursday, telling the three-judge panel that “what I did was a natural response to the occupation.”
……Court spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said al-Zeidi received the minimum sentence for the assault charge but could appeal the conviction. He could have received up to 15 years in prison for hurling his shoes at Bush during a Dec. 14 news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
……”Al-Zeidi should have been honored and not sent to prison,” said Salam Omar, who owns a cell phone shop in eastern Baghdad.
……The journalist has been in Iraqi custody since the shoe incident. Bush quickly ducked to avoid being hit and was not injured. Al-Zeidi was quickly wrestled to the ground by guards and dragged away.
……Many people in the region — angry over the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — have embraced al-Zeidi. They have staged large street rallies calling for his release, and one Iraqi man erected a sofa-sized sculpture of a shoe in his honor that the Iraqi government later ordered removed.
From a previous post:
No enemy likes being invaded and occupied, especially when that country happens to be smack in the middle of Islamic terrorist nation-states. Hussein was a WMD wielding, mass grave-filling, dissent-squashing megalomaniac. Some people miss that but then, there’s some Russians who miss Stalin, too.
It’s amazing how those responsible for making Iraq a better place, are held in contempt instead of praise for enabling an environment where this shoe-tossing idiot won’t be disemboweled and left on his family’s doorstep.
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/disgruntled-iraqi-reporter-lobs-shoes-at-bush/
See you in three years, al-Zeidi. Enjoy the 8×10.