An Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush, the former US president, has had his sentence reduced from three years to one, a court spokesman has said, according to Aljazeera.net Wednesday.
The news came as a surprise to Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s family, who called it “a victory for the Iraqi people”.
The decision was made as al-Zeidi had no prior criminal record, an official said.
The defence appealed against the original ruling to the Federal Appeals Court citing an Iraqi law stipulating a maximum sentence of only two years for publicly insulting a visiting foreign leader.
A-Zeidi, 30, has become a folk hero across the Arab world since the attack, where Bush is reviled over the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
