By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, 5 March 2013:
The Justice Minister says he has asked the Attorney General to release on bail Amara . . .[restrict]Abdallah Al-Khatabi, the editor of the newspaper Al-Umma who has been held in Hadba jail awaiting trial on charges of libel and defamation after his paper accused a number of judges of corruption.
In response to a question by Al Jazeera TV about the case at the Prime Minister’s press conference on Saturday, Justice Minister Salah Marghani said he had written to the Attorney General urging him to take the 67-year-old editor’s health into consideration. He added that journalists should not be imprisoned, even if they had committed a professional offense, and that they should be fined not put in prison.
He also stressed the need for press freedom and not to stifle freedom of expression.
He also pointed out that even if it what had been alleged were true, the fact was that names of judges had been published without proof and in doing so had put their families in difficulties.
According to Marghani, a court hearing for Khatabi’s case will on 11 March. [/restrict]
