Zaidi, 30, was initially sentenced to three years for assaulting a foreign head of state, but had his jail time reduced to one year on appeal. He is set to be freed early because of good behaviour.
“We will know about 9 am (0600 GMT) on Monday if he is to be released,” the reporter’s lawyer, Dhiya al-Saadi, told AFP.
Although Zaidi’s prison time is up, legal procedures in Iraq often see an inmate’s liberty delayed for several extra days to allow the necessary prison release documents to be signed and approved.
The journalist’s family also expect him to leave jail on Monday but are still awaiting official confirmation. “We are preparing for his release,” said Zaidi’s
Zaidi shouted “it is the farewell kiss, you dog,” at Bush on December 14 last year, seconds before hurling his size-10 shoes at the man who ordered Iraq be invaded and occupied six-and-a-half years ago.
Although Bush, who successfully ducked to avoid the speeding footwear, laughed off the attack, the incident caused massive embarrassment, to both him and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The leaders had been speaking at a joint press conference in Baghdad on what was Bush’s farewell visit to Iraq prior to being succeeded in office by then president-elect
Zaidi faces the prospect of a very different life from his previous existence as a journalist for Al-Baghdadia television, a small, privately-owned Cairo-based station, which has continued to pay his salary in jail.
Zaidi’s boss has promised the previously little-known reporter a new home as a reward for loyalty and the publicity that his actions, broadcast live across the world, generated for the station.
But there is talk of plum job offers from bigger Arab networks, lavish gifts such as sports cars from businessmen, a
Zaidi, who hails from Iraq’s Shiite majority, was kidnapped in Baghdad and held by unknown captors for three days in 2007 and then detained for one day by US forces at the beginning of 2008, according to his brother.
Such experiences, said friends at the time of his arrest, at least partly explained the vehemence of his actions against Bush.
Zaidi also told the judge at his trial that he had been beaten up several times since being taken into custody last year.
The publicity that Zaidi garnered, however, means he is likely to be meet by both adulation and bemusement among his countrymen, who were divided by his shoe-throwing gesture, considered a grave insult in the Arab and Muslim world.
“He is a brave man,” said Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, spokesman for the radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose support comes from the millions of Iraqis living in Shiite slums throughout the country.
“Muntazer’s release is a victory for all those who reject the occupation and stand against it.”
But to many others, Zaidi’s actions are nothing to be proud of.
“I don’t consider him to have taken a heroic stance,” said Ali Adnan, a 32-year-old defence ministry employee.
“There is a widespread view among Iraqis that Bush deserved what happened to him but in our tradition you cannot offend a guest. It cannot be justified. It reflected a negative view of Iraqi society,” he added.
Abdul Jabhar Hashem, a 52-year-old construction company owner, was similarly unimpressed. “If I see Zaidi
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