September 21, 2009

GENEVA — The Iraqi journalist who was jailed for throwing his shoes at George W. Bush said in an interview that he wants to move to Switzerland and rally Iraqis to take the ex-US president to court.

"I really want to go to Switzerland because it is a neutral country and because it is a country that did not support the occupation of Iraq," Muntazer al-Zaidi told TSR television in an interview broadcast Monday.

"Switzerland hosts many international organisations, including some that fight for children, and Switzerland is a country that has a great democratic tradition. It is an example for the world," he said in an interview taped Thursday from an undisclosed location.

Zaidi, who says he was tortured while in prison, was freed last week after being jailed for nine months for hurling the shoes at Bush last December during a Baghdad press conference one month before he stood down as US president.

His employer, Al-Baghdadia TV station in Baghdad, and a family member have said that Zaidi had left Iraq for Syria and would travel on to Greece for medical treatment.

Zaidi told TSR that he wants to launch a "vast operation" to rally Iraqi families in order to lodge a legal complaint against Bush.

Bush and his collaborators should face trial in an international tribunal for "war crimes committed during the occupation of Iraq," he said.

Zaidi told the Swiss broadcaster that he was beaten with metal bars, tortured with electric cables and endured simulated drowning during his detention.

An attorney in Geneva said in February that he had lodged a political asylum application on Zaidi's behalf. But one of Zaidi's brothers had denied this at the time, calling it a "lie."

The newsman was initially sentenced to three years for assaulting a foreign head of state, but had this reduced to one year on appeal. His sentence was cut further for good behaviour.