Hero or villain? Iraq's shoe thrower faces judgment

Zeidi, neatly dressed in an olive green jacket and trousers, stood throughout the 90-minute trial in the court building that formerly housed a museum for gifts to Saddam Hussein from foreign delegations and heads of state. The chief justice presided from an elevated platform in the marble-panelled room.

The journalist told chief judge Abdul Ameer Hassan al-Rubaie that he became enraged before the news conference when the US security detail insisted on searching Iraqis again, even though they had been repeatedly searched by Iraqi forces.

During the press conference he watched Bush smile and talk about having dinner with Maliki. He told the judge that all he could think of where the Iraqis who had been killed, the orphans and widows left behind, and the houses and mosques violated by American soldiers.

Dressed in defense attorney garb of black and green robes, Ghalib Muhammad al-Rubaie says there's no way that Bush should have been considered an invited guest to Iraq. "He entered Iraq like a thief," he says.

"It's the Americans who don't respect the law ... what about Abu Ghraib and Haditha?" he says, referring, respectively, to the notorious US-run detention center were prisoners were abused and the killing of Iraqi women and children by marines in 2006.

Asked by his brother, Maitham, to help represent Zeidi, the lawyer was dropped because of a procedural matter in Thursday's trial. Mr. Rubaie, the lawyer, said he would continue to represent him, even if by force.

As the judge announced the adjournment, security forces outside linked arms to keep spectators and relatives away, letting only his brothers and sisters through for a 15-minute meeting. Zeidi, one of three brothers and five sisters, has helped support the family since their father and mother died. His father retired from the Iraqi Army in 1979 after being blinded while fighting Kurdish forces in the north of Iraq.

"I'm worried they will beat him again," says his younger sister Dunya, who sobbed when he was led into the courtroom and again after she saw her brother.

Even Zeidi's shoes have become icons.

"When we asked for the shoes as evidence the directorate announced the shoes had been ruined in the lab tests and they couldn't give them back. They became like a holy object – emanating light like a halo – they didn't want them to inspire others," says chief defense lawyer Dhia Sadi, mockingly.

Zeidi's TV station has been running regular call-in programs from viewers professing their support – and affection for the jailed journalist. One Syrian woman Wednesday launched into a poem she had written, which ends: "Long live Muntadhar's shoes –long live Iraqi dignity."

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