3 seconds ago 2009-12-01T16:55:02-08:00
RABAT (AFP) – The founding editor of Morocco's biggest-selling daily Al Massae, Rachid Nini, was sentenced Monday to three months in jail for "publishing false information," a judicial source said.
Said Laajal, the journalist who wrote the incriminating article, was given a two-month prison term by the same court in the northern town of Casablanca.
Both men were then freed for 10 days, when they will be allowed to appeal against their sentences, but Rachid Nihi already told AFP that he does not intend to appeal.
The journalists were accused of misinformation in a report on the August 17 dismantling of a major drug trafficking network in Morocco, called "Triha" for the name of its suspected leader.
The latter is among 16 suspected drugs barons who were arrested in the north of the north African kingdom after a major police operation.
"It's a mascarade, I'm not going to appeal," Nini said, adding that the prosecutor "accuses me of having written that during Triha's interrogation, he 'ratted' on the name of an judicial official."
"My sentence is intimidation. What's needed is to pursue the real traffickers," Nini added.
Apart from the two Al Massae journalists, who work for the paper with Morocco's highest circulation at 154,000, Moroccan courts have in the past few weeks jailed several journalists for "misinformation" about the royal family.
The organisation Reporters sans frontières (RSF - Reporters Without Borders) and the National Union of the Moroccan Press have deplored these convictions and sentences.
