The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W Bush was released on Tuesday after nine months in prison.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, whose stunning act of protest last December made him a hero around the Arab and Muslim worlds, said Iraqi security forces tortured him with beatings, whippings and electric shocks after his arrest. He said he now feared for his life and believed that US intelligence agents would chase after him.

“These fearful services, the US intelligence services and its affiliated services, will spare no efforts to track me as an insurgent revolutionary ... in a bid to kill me,” he told a news conference.

“And here I want to warn all my relatives and people close to me that these services will use all means to trap and try to kill and liquidate me either physically, socially or professionally,” he said.

The 30-year-old reporter's act of protest deeply embarrassed Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was standing beside Bush at a Dec 14 news conference when al-Zeidi suddenly shot up from his chair had hurled his shoes toward the podium.