Yemeni editor walks free

2006-11-26 10:17

Sanaa - A Yemeni court sentenced a newspaper editor to one year in jail Saturday and shut his publication for reprinting offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, but the attorney general freed the journalist.

The court in Sanaa handed down the one-year jail sentence to Kamal al-Olfi, editor of Al-Rai Al-Aam, and banned him from writing for six months, in addition to closing his private weekly, an AFP correspondent reported.

The court accused Olfi of mocking Islam's prophet by reprinting the controversial cartoons, which were initially published in Danish newspapers and sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world earlier this year.

The defence team appealed the verdict, while Olfi said the court had ignored the defense's argument that his newspaper had reproduced the drawings with a view to "defending the Prophet, not mocking him".

But attorney general Abdullah al-Olfi ordered the release of the journalist two hours after the court passed the sentence, effectively reducing the penalty to closure of the newspaper and a six-month writing ban.

The move came after a meeting with the journalist's defence team.

Both Al-Rai Al-Aam and the English-language weekly Yemen Observer were suspended for about six months by the Yemeni information ministry earlier this year for reprinting the cartoons.

The editor of Yemen Observer is still being tried in connection with the case.

- AFP