Missing a tooth and draped in an Iraqi flag, Muntazer al-Zaidi used his first hours of freedom since hurling his shoes at George Bush to angrily defend his action, and claim he was tortured by government officials after his arrest.

Zaidi's release today– nine months into a three-year sentence for assaulting a foreign dignitary – was met with muted celebration in Baghdad but rapturous applause in some corners of the Arab world, where the 30-year-old television journalist is feted as a David and Goliath figure for his act of defiance.

In his first public statement since the protest – which humiliated the former US president and the Iraqi prime minister, Nour al-Maliki – Zaidi said he was an Iraqi nationalist, adding that the aerial assault on "the war criminal Bush" was his answer to the cries of those who had lost family during throughout the occupation.

During his 10-second outburst at Bush's swansong public event in Iraq last December, he had shouted that his shoes were "a farewell kiss".

he had a new line: "The criminal murderer is standing here expecting us to throw flowers at him. This was my flower to the occupier."

Zaidi gave a detailed account of being tortured after his arrest, and vowed to reveal the names of senior officials in the Iraqi government and army who he said had been involved in his mistreatment.

He was beaten with cables, wires and whips and immersed in cold water, he said. He now feared for his life, and believed US intelligence agents would pursue him. "These fearsome 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.

"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."

Zaidi said his invitation to the press conference was an "opportunity he could not miss" and revealed that during the six years that he covered the Iraqi war as a journalist he had privately promised to the conflict's widows and orphans that he would avenge their suffering. He had once been briefly arrested by the American military, but had later received an apology.

"Simply put, what incited me toward confrontation is the oppression that fell upon my people and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by placing it under its boots," he said at the headquarters of his employers, the al-Baghdadiya television station. "The invasion came with the slogan of liberation, but it divided brothers and neighbours and turned our houses into places for endless mourning and our streets and parks into cemeteries."

Zaidi was released mid-morning and whisked straight to the studios by a security convoy. Guards danced on the back of the lead vehicle as their colleague emerged to a throng of reporters. Six sheep were slaughtered in front of him as he pushed his way through. He bypassed a bright red puddle of blood amid a shower of toffees and the beating of drums.

Nearby, in the riverside suburb of Rashid, where Zaidi once lived, his family were celebrating joyfully – men on one side of the apartment and women on the other, as they waited for his homecoming.

Instead, Zaidi spent all day at his workplace, where he received medical checks and read dozens of faxes and letters that had been sent to him by supporters during the past nine months.

Shortly after the incident, Bush characterised it as an act of protest that would not have been possible under Saddam Hussein's regime. He declined to comment ahead of Zaidi's release and added nothing today.

Zaidi has a career in politics, preferring to cast himself as a leftwing revolutionary. His family and his employers have expressed doubt that he will return to journalism and have said he will launch a new career helping Iraq's disadvantaged.

Last night, however, he was seen at Baghdad airport where he was believed to be catching a flight to Damascus. He will be treated in hospital there for injuries he said he received in prison, among them a broken tooth, and a broken foot that has not healed properly. Zaidi then has a long list of invitations to wade through, among them the patronage of Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi and the pledge of citizenship and $100,000 (£60,600) from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.