Bush 'shoe thrower' claims he was tortured in prison

[derby378]

Source: Cable News Network

The Iraqi man who threw his shoes at then-President George W. Bush last year said Tuesday that he was beaten and tortured while he was detained.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi told reporters after he was released that he was beaten with cables and pipes and tortured with electricity immediately after guards removed him from a news conference for hurling both shoes at Bush.

He said he was taken into another room and beaten even as the press conference continued.

"At the time that (Iraqi) Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on television that he could not sleep without being reassured on my fate...I was being tortured in the worst ways, beaten with electric cables and iron bars," he was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/15/iraq.shoe.thrower/index.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. What, they were trying to make him give up the name

of his shoe salesman?

[tomm2thumbs]

10. heh heh heh - nt

[Warpy]

2. I wonder if he had any idea while it was going on

of how much of a hero he was to people around the world who despised the administration and the meat puppet that was its public face.

I'm still blown away by both his anger and the bravery it caused. We can still count on mostly humane treatment in the US. Iraqis have never been able to count on that.

I don't have many heroes, but he's always going to be one of them.

[derby378]

3. Well said

And it sure put another damper on Bush's claims that Saddam's torture chambers had been shut down.

[FormerDittoHead]

4. OK. Say you had a ticking shoe ready to go off and you had the one man who could unlace it. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

6. LOL

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Cool. Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

"That's in perfect keeping with our, smirk, Republicon Family Pharisee Values. Smirk."

- xCommander AWOL (R)

[Soylent Brice]

7. color me shocked.

what a fucked up mess.

[ro1942]

8. He CLAIMED he was tortured

[KansDem]

9. Yes, what he meant to say was, "I was enhancely interrogated"

Good thing his children weren't around or they'd be getting objects rammed up their anuses in order to get him to talk.

On edit: Assuming they wanted him to talk...

[derby378]

11. Holy James Bond, Batman...

"You expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

[KansDem]

12. Ahh! Another Gert Frobe fan!

I always thought he was the quintessential nemesis for Bond. He seemed so much more believable. I found the other villains to be either clownish or dull...

[marasinghe]

13. cynical, much? check out his - before & after prison - photos on the yahoo news slide-show.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Iraqi-Shoe-Thrower-Muntadhar-al-Zeidi/ss/events/wl/091509shoethrower#photoViewer=/090915/photos_wl_me_afp/0320f7296a0658f75c5cdb97738b7ef6

before: full set of upper front teeth
(slides nos. 17; 20; 38; 56 dated 11/26/08; etc. - screen-grabs from old tv shows & file photos)

after: upper center right incisor missing
(see slides nos. 4, 6, 12, 14, 21, 25, etc.)

but, i'm sure you can come up with your reasonable explanation for that. like: they don't provide toothpaste in iraqi jails; or, iraqi cops roughed him up when they grabbed him; or, imprisoned insurgents broke his teeth 'cos he missed hitting that filthy scumbag bush with his shoes. whatever.

get real. this kid, Muntadhar Al-Zeidi, is a warrior - even if his weapons were only his shoes - & he counted coup on the murdering g.w. bush viper, like the warriors of the plains tribes. and, like another poster wrote earlier, he's a hero not just to the arabs, but to the world.