The trial of shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, charged with assaulting a foreign head of state visiting Iraq, begins December 31. Abdul Satar Birqadr, spokesman for Iraq’s High Judicial Council, said a three-judge panel would hear the case:

The case is not complicated and I expect it won’t take a great deal of time to reach a ruling.

U.S.-backed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has condemned Zaidi’s actions but reportedly he will not want to alienate Zaidi’s supporters: Provincial elections next are month.  The prime minister met with Iraqi journalists Sunday, praising the media and pledging justice would run its course–even if that meant Zaidi went free. Iraqi authorities will give the media full access to the trial, due in part to the worldwide interest and sensitivity of the case.

Zaidi’s brother said the reporter would toss footwear again if he had the chance. Reuters reports:

Uday al-Zaidi said his brother had told an investigative judge Sunday that he had expected to be shot after hurling his first shoe.

But when that did not happen, "’that gave me time to throw the second (shoe),’" Zaidi quoted his brother as saying. "’If the clock were turned back, I’d do the same thing over again.’"

The journalist shows signs of have been beaten, his brother and lawyer report, and that his brother

had been tortured into telling the authorities that someone persuaded him to throw his shoes at Bush.

Meanwhile, Istanbul shoemaker Ramazan Baydan, who claims to have designed the black oxford known as Ducati Model 271 has seen his orders soar for what is now called "the Bush shoe." A British distributor placed an order for 95,000 pairs and a American company orderd 18,000 pairs. Five thousand sales posters of the shoe with the slogan "Goodbye Bush, Hello Democracy" in Turkish, Arabic and English are ready for distribution.