Middle East News
Iraqi shoe-throwing journalist gets three years in prison (Extra)
Mar 12, 2009, 9:49 GMT
Baghdad - Baghdad's Central Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced the Iraqi television journalist who famously threw his shoes at then-US President George W Bush in December to three years in prison, judicial sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite television network and Baghdad's Voices of Iraq news agency confirmed the reports.
Montadher al-Zaidi, a 30-year-old journalist for the Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya television station, on Thursday entered a 'not guilty' plea to charges of assaulting a foreign head of state.
As al-Zaidi entered the court earlier on Thursday, he wept when told that a cameraman and a reporter from the station were among more than 30 people killed in a bombing in the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad on Tuesday.
Al-Zaidi, who became an instant hero in Iraq and across the Arab world for throwing his shoes at the then-US president and shouting 'this is a parting gift, you dog' during a December press conference, had faced up to 15 years in prison.
The first session of al-Zaidi's trial in February was quickly adjourned so judges could determine whether the former US president had been on Iraq on a state visit.
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