Brother details alleged torture of journalist

BAGHDAD — The television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush was burned by a cigarette after his arrest Dec. 14 and beaten so badly by Iraqi security personnel that one of his teeth was knocked out, the reporter's brother said Sunday after a visit to the jail.

The reporter, Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 29, has been jailed since hurling his shoes at the visiting U.S. president during a news conference here last week.

Al-Zeidi has not been formally charged, but he faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of the crime of aggression against a foreign leader during an official visit.

Allegations denied

A spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not return phone calls seeking comment Sunday, but the al-Maliki government previously denied al-Zeidi had been mistreated.

It was the prime minister's security detail that detained al-Zeidi after he hurled his shoes at Bush. Al-Zeidi was seen being beaten before he was pulled from the room.

On Sunday, several hours before the torture allegations were made public, al-Maliki said he had received a letter from al-Zeidi saying a terrorist had persuaded him to throw his shoes at Bush.

Al-Zeidi's family has maintained he was acting out of his own frustration with the U.S. invasion.

The visit by one of al-Zeidi's brothers was the first by either a relative or lawyer allowed since the reporter was jailed.

During an interview broadcast Sunday on Al Baghdadia, the Cairo-based satellite television network that employs al-Zeidi, his brother Uday, 33, said al-Zeidi had been stripped to his underwear before being placed in a cell and tortured during the first 24-hour period.

Cold water

"He told me he was sleeping on the floor of the cell when a very large man came in and dumped cold water on him and began hitting him with a thick cable," Uday al-Zeidi said.

He said his brother had told him he was brutally beaten by several men and burned on his right ear by a cigarette.

Uday al-Zeidi said his brother had bruises on his face, stitches on the bridge of his nose and swelling in his legs, arms and hands.

His jailers had periodically demanded he state in a videotaped confession that he had been ordered to commit the act by enemies of the prime minister, Uday al-Zeidi said his brother had told him.

After several hours of torture, his brother agreed, he said.