KEY POINTS:
The Turkish company which made the shoes an Iraqi journalist hurled at President George W. Bush last week is reporting a massive increase in sales in the wake of the now infamous incident.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi became a hero throughout the Arab world when he threw his shoes at the US president during a press conference last week.
Istanbul-based shoemaker Ramazan Baydan says his company, Baydan Shoes, has been inundated with requests for pairs of the shoes and he has had to employ 100 extra staff to meet the demand.
The 'Bush Shoes' as they have come to be known, are the company's Model 271 - black, polyurethane-soled brogues which sell for around 40 New Turkish Lira (NZ$47).
Serkan Turk, the head of sales at Baydan Shoes told AFP the firm normally sold 15,000 pairs a year of the Model 271 shoes.
Since the shoe-throwing incident on December 14 however, the company has received orders totalling 370,000 pairs.
Turk said the company was "delighted from all points of view" at the Bush Shoes' unexpected success.
Demand for the shoes initially came from Iraq, but had spread to other Middle East countries and 19,000 orders came from the United States, Turk said.
Al-Zeidi's trial on charges of assaulting a foreign leader is scheduled to begin on December 31, said Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, a spokesman for the Iraqi Higher Judicial Court.
A conviction would carry a sentence of up to two years in prison and investigating judge Dhia al-Kinani said last week he does not have the legal option to drop the case.
Al-Zeidi also can't be pardoned unless he is convicted, added the judge.
- NZ HERALD STAFF , AP
