Tuesday, December 16, 2008

'Bush shoe-thrower "tortured"'

Bush should have stayed home and not done his last act of meddling in these people's affairs. I would be provoked, too. From Al Jazeera English here.

An Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at the US president has been tortured during his detention, his brother has said.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, who called George Bush "a dog" during his attack, was beaten by security guards after his arrest, Durgham al-Zaidi told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

"We know that [Muntazer] has been tortured and his hand was broken. I asked them to go and check on him in the Green Zone [in Baghdad]," he said.

Al-Baghdadia television, Muntazer's employer, reported that al-Zeidi had been "seriously injured" while in custody.

The channel has urged the Iraqi government to allow lawyers and the Iraqi Red Crescent to visit him.

The Iraqi military has denied that al-Zaidi has been mistreated while in detention. . . .

The court may send him for trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code that makes it an offence to try to murder Iraqi or foreign presidents.

The sentence could be up to 15 years jail, Birqadr said. . . .

How is throwing one's shoes at anyone an act of attempted murder? It may have been technically an assault (in our legal system at least, or perhaps more accurately an attempted battery, but I'm no lawyer), but it in the Iraqi culture it was meant as an insult. See here also.

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