BAGHDAD - THE Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President George W. Bush has appealed for a pardon for what he acknowledged was as 'an ugly act', the prime minister's spokesman said on Thursday. The journalist's brother, however, questioned whether the statement was genuine.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi wrote in a letter from jail to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that throwing his shoes at Mr Bush last Sunday was a 'big and ugly act', spokesman Yassin Majid said.

According to Mr Majid, the letter appeals for a pardon and asks al-Maliki to recall the kindness the future prime minister showed him during a 2005 interview when he invited the journalist to his home.

'So I ask for your pardon, excellency,' Mr Majid quoted the letter as saying.

But the journalist's brother, Mr Dhargham al-Zeidi, told the AP that he was skeptical that his brother would write such a letter.

'I am auspicious that my brother wrote that letter to Mr al-Maliki because I know my brother very well,' he said. He added that family members and staffers from his Al-Baghdadia television would stage a sit-in near the US-controlled Green Zone on Friday.

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

Officials say he is likely to face charges of insulting a foreign leader, which carries a two-year sentence.

Al-Zeidi's case has riveted Iraq, with many Iraqis considering him a national hero for defying a president whom many of them blame for destroying the country.

A shouting match on Wednesday between parliament members for and against al-Zeidi prompted the hot-tempered speaker, Mr Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, to announce he was resigning.

Mr al-Mashhadani, who has a history of erratic behavior, showed up at parliament on Thursday to resume his speaker duties. But so many lawmakers boycotted in protest of Mr al-Mashhadani's outburst that the session was cancelled.

Al-Zeidi's action was broadcast repeatedly on television stations around the world. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack suggested that worldwide attention to the shoe-tossing was overblown.

'We would hope that the fact of a US president standing next to a freely elected prime minister of Iraq who just happens to be Shia, who is governing in a multi-confessional, multiethnic democracy in the heart of the Middle East, is not overshadowed by one incident like this,' Mr McCormack told reporters in Washington.

Mr McCormack said he believed that in the coming years 'the fact of the president making that visit under those circumstances will probably overshadow any memory of this particular gentleman and what he did'.

According to Iraq's constitution, President Jalal Talabani can issue a pardon if recommended by the prime minister, except for certain offenses, including international crimes. That would enable the government to put an end to the affair without risking a backlash from al-Zeidi's admirers.

But such pardons are ordinarily issued only after someone has been convicted. An investigating judge is studying whether there is enough evidence for a trial. -- AP