Mauritanian opposition party chairman withdraws complaint against journalists
The chairman of the opposition Popular Front political party, Ch'bih Ould Cheikh Malainnie, has withdrawn complaints of defamation he filed against three journalists from privately-owned Nouakchott-based newspapers.
Nouakchott - The journalists, managing editor of the daily newspaper L'Authentique, Oumar Moctar, managing editor of the daily Al Vejr, Tah Ould Ahmed, and managing editor of the daily Al Alem, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Bakar, were interrogated by police on 28 May for about one and a half hours. The interrogation followed a complaint against them made by Malainnie.
In several articles, the newspapers had linked the party's chairman to a recent cocaine scandal that hit the country in early May.
Another journalist, Abdel Fettah Ould Ebeydna, managing editor of Al-Aqsa, a daily Arabic language newspaper, was accused of defamation by a businessman and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for four days before being granted bail pending further investigations into the matter.
Source: IFEX
