The trial of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush has been postponed indefinitely, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
"I have presented an impugn for the charges against my client Muntadhar al-Zaidi to the appeal court," Diyaa al-Saadi, Zaidi's lawyer and head of the Union of Iraqi Lawyers, told Xinhua.
"Therefore, the court which was due to prosecute Zaidi on Dec. 31 postponed the trial indefinitely waiting for the decision of appeal court," Saadi added.
On Dec. 22, Saadi told Xinhua that he will impugn the transfer charge which was issued by the investigating judge against his client and demand a lesser charge.
Al-Zaidi, a reporter of Cairo-Based Baghdadia Iraqi television, threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Dec. 14 in Baghdad.
Saadi said that the investigating judge is accusing Zaidi of an article that consider Zaidi's act as "aggression against a foreign head of state during an official visit," an offense that carries a prison term of between five and 15 years under Iraqi law.
"I will demand that the charge to be less than that because the act was an insult not an aggression," Saadi said without telling the date of the trial.
Many Iraqis took to streets in many Iraqi cities protesting the detention of Zaidi whom they praise his throwing of both of his shoes at Bush as a heroic act.
(Xinhua News Agency December 30, 2008)