Baghdad
- The trial of an Iraqi journalist who famously threw his shoes at
former US President George W. Bush in December opened in Baghdad on
Thursday, and was later adjourned.

Montazer al-Zaidi, a journalist for the Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya
television station, arrived in court clad in a suit and draped in an
Iraqi flag.

People in court waved Iraqi flags as the 30-year-old arrived, and
cheered. A crowd gathered outside the court also waved Iraqi flags, and
chanted demands for his release.

After listening to witnesses including al-Zaidi himself, a judge at the
Central Criminal Court adjourned the trial until March 12 so that the
court could ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki whether former
president Bush had been in Iraq on an official visit.

Al-Zaidi faces up to 15 years in prison on charges of assaulting a
foreign head of state for throwing his shoes at the former US president
at a December press conference in Baghdad.

Al-Zaidi's lawyers have said the journalist was exercising his
constitutional right to free expression, and politicians Iraqi and Arab
politicians have called for his release, calling him a hero.

If the judge reduces the charge to simple assault, the maximum sentence would be five years.

Al-Zaidi became a hero in Iraq and the Arab world when he threw his
shoes at Bush and called out, "This is a farewell present, you dog!"

The shoes narrowly missed the former president, and Bush joked that the shoes were "size 10." (dpa)