Shoe-Thrower: I Was Tortured

Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi man who hurled a shoe at then-President George W. Bush last year, has been released from prison after nine months of detention, during which he says he was tortured. Al-Zaidi became a hero to many Muslims and Arabs around the world for his act of protest and now says he will leave Iraq because he fears his life is in danger there, and because he plans on releasing the names of high-level government officials he says were involved in his abuse, which included beatings, whippings and electrocution. But al-Zaidi is unrepentant. "I saw the chance and I seized it," he said. "If those who blamed me knew how many destroyed houses I walked over with those shoes that I threw; and how many times those shoes mixed with the blood of the innocent; and how many times those shoes went into homes where the honor of those who lived there was disgraced, then it was probably the proper response."