BAGHDAD — A Baghdad judge ruled Thursday that an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at then-President George W. Bush was guilty of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced him to three years in prison, a verdict that unleashed tumult in the courtroom.
“Long live Iraq!” shouted the television journalist, Muntadar al-Zaidi, as the sentence was handed down.
Smiling and waving, the 30-year-old al-Zaidi was escorted afterward from the dilapidated courthouse in the Green Zone, where a crowd had gathered outside the courtroom doors. His sister collapsed on the floor in tears, and police hustled two of his brothers out of the building after the verdict was heard.
“You’re a hero, Muntadar!” some shouted.
“Down with Bush!” others cried.
“The judges were puppets sitting in the court,” one brother, Dhurgham, said.
Al-Zaidi became a folk hero of sorts in the Arab world after hurling both shoes at Bush during a news conference Dec. 14. Bush successfully ducked.
“This is your farewell kiss, you dog!” al-Zaidi had shouted as he threw the footwear. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
In the days that followed, al-Zaidi’s spectacle became a fixture of almost every conversation in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. The gesture captured the deep-seated anger many in Iraq feel toward the U.S. occupation.
Al-Zaidi faced up to 15 years in prison, but his lawyers said the judges decided to show leniency because of his age and lack of prior convictions.
He offered only a short statement Thursday, answering the judge as to his innocence or guilt.
“I am innocent,” he said. “What I did was a natural response to the occupation.”
