Bush’s icy smile enraged Iraq shoe-thrower

An Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at US President, George W Bush, said in the past he had videotaped himself practising the Arab insult to use against the president whose icy smile had filled him with uncontrollable rage.

An Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at US President, George W. Bush, said in the past he had videotaped himself practising the Arab insult to use against the president whose icy smile had filled him with uncontrollable rage.

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Muntazer al-Zaidi, a journalist for the Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya television station, arrived in court clad in a suit and draped in an Iraqi flag.

People in court waved Iraqi flags as the 30-year-old arrived, and cheered.

After listening to witnesses including al-Zaidi himself, a judge at the Central Criminal Court adjourned the trial until March 12 so that the court could ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki whether former president Bush had been in Iraq on an official visit.

Al-Zaidi faces up to 15 years in prison.