fter leaving prison, Muntadar al-Zaidi went straight to al Baghdadiya - the TV station he was working for at the news conference where he threw the shoes.

Addressing his own news conference, he said he had been tortured: "At the very moment that the Prime Minister Mr al-Maliki was on TV saying he wouldn't rest until he was sure I was sleeping on a comfortable bed, I was being hideously tortured.

"I was being given electric shocks, and being hit with cables and steel roods... I was left handcuffed and immersed in water until dawn in cold weather. I demand that Mr al-Maliki apologise for concealing the truth."

An advisor to the prime minister told the BBC that the torture allegation should be investigated.

        
When I saw the war criminal Bush, I wanted to show my resentment - after six years of occupation, this killer came to my country smiling and bragging about victory
Muntadar al-Zaidi

And a spokesman for the ministry of human rights told us they do not believe he was tortured in the jail where he spent the past nine months, as it is a "detention centre with acceptable human rights standards".

They concluded that, if he was tortured, it must have happened soon after he was arrested and before his trial.

At his news conference, Mr Zaidi offered an explanation for his shoe-throwing protest.

"I'm not a hero," he said, "but when I saw the war criminal Bush, I wanted to show my resentment - after six years of occupation, this killer came to my country smiling and bragging about victory."

He went on: "When I saw the pictures of the dead, it kept me awake at night."

He also addressed objections that journalists should throw questions at presidents, and not shoes: "If I gave the profession of journalism a bad name, I apologise," he said.