An Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US president George W. Bush goes on trial Thursday with his lawyers set to argue that the remarkable protest was lawful.
Muntazer al-Zaidi won global fame when his footwear whizzed past Bush's head on December 14 as the president was making a farewell visit to Iraq before leaving the White House.
The reporter faces up to 15 years in prison if he is found guilty of assaulting a foreign leader, the charge levelled against him by prosecutors for the dramatic gesture that was hailed across the Arab world.
Zaidi's legal team will ask for the charge to be thrown out and for the 30-year-old journalist, who works for the private Al-Baghdadia television channel, to be freed.
"We met Muntazer on Wednesday and explained to him the lines that the defence team will present," lawyer Dhiya al-Saadi told AFP after a one-hour meeting with the journalist.
"He was optimistic and ready to stand in front of the court, as he believes what he did was fair. He is counting on his release because he did not try to kill former president Bush and was only expressing his opinion."
The trial opens at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) at the Central Criminal Court, which is responsible for terrorism cases and situated near the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government and some Western embassies are located.
Zaidi is expected to be called to the court, where prosecutors will present witnesses and also ask the journalist to give his account of what happened.
"They will ask him to talk about that day," Saadi said. "Then the court will give some reports about that day before the prosecutor gives his reading and the defence team responds."
The shoes will not be presented in court as they were destroyed, having been cut up and checked for possible explosives after the incident.
Bush, who ordered the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, was speaking at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, when he managed to duck and narrowly avoid the shoes thrown by Zaidi.
The gesture is considered a grave and symbolic insult in the Arab and Muslim world.
The journalist, who was abducted by insurgents during the sectarian strife in Iraq after the invasion, also insulted Bush verbally, shouting: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," before being wrestled to the ground by security guards.
Bush reappeared soon afterwards and laughed off the incident, joking with reporters that the shoes were a "size 10".
The charge of assaulting a foreign leader carries a prison term of between five and 15 years. Judicial authorities could also have dismissed the charge or altered it to a lesser one of "attempted aggression" which carries a prison term of one to five years.
One of Zaidi's brothers, Durgham, said: "The court has to treat Muntazer as an opponent of the occupation. Bush was not a guest. The law gives the right to the sons of this country to resist the occupation."
A judge in December rejected allegations by the journalist's family that he had been tortured in custody, charges that were levelled after his brother was allowed to visit him in prison.
The incident inspired a British student, Alex Tew, to create a "Sock and Awe" (www.sockandawe.com) shoe-throwing website which says it has so far had more than 86 million hits in the face of ex-president Bush on the Internet.
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