From AP via globeandmail.com:

The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush is begging for a pardon for what he described as "an ugly act," the Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for an Iraqi-owned television station based in Cairo, could face two years imprisonment for insulting a foreign leader. He remained in custody last night.

"It is too late to reverse the big and ugly act that I perpetrated," Mr. al-Zeidi wrote in a letter delivered to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to the Prime Minister's spokesman.

The spokesman, Yassin Majid, said that Mr. al-Zeidi went on in the letter to recall an interview he conducted with the Prime Minister in 2005 when Mr. al-Maliki invited him into his home, saying: "Come in, it is your home, too."

"So I ask for your pardon, Excellency," Mr. Majid quoted the letter as saying.

However, the journalist's brother, Dhargham al-Zeidi, said he was skeptical that his brother would write such a letter.

"I am suspicious that my brother wrote that letter to al-Maliki because I know my brother very well," he said. He added that family members and staffers from Al-Baghdadia would stage a sit-in today near the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

Mr. al-Zeidi has been in custody since the Sunday night incident, which occurred during a joint news conference by Mr. Bush and Mr. al-Maliki.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Mr. al-Zeidi will be tried for "insult to a foreign leader, attempted assault."

Mr. Zebari said it was unlikely Mr. al-Zeidi would be released without being sentenced.

"Really, if this incident had happened during Saddam's rule, he would have been shot on the spot," he said.