Mauritania: Court upholds imprisonment of journalist

A Nouakchott Court of Appeal has upheld the one-year jail sentence, for defamation, of the editorial director of the periodical “Al Aqsa”, Abdel Vettah Ould Abeidna, judicial sources said Tuesday. The court upheld the decision of the magistrate’s court on 7 November 2007. Ould Abeidna was sued by businessman Mohamed Ould Bouamatou, whom the newspaper had mentioned in an international drug trafficking case. Lawyers to the journalist have condemned their client’s imprisonment based on the penal code, instead of the special law provisions relating to the freedom of the press.