TRIPOLI: A Tripoli court has sentenced a Libyan journalist to five years in jail and slapped him with a hefty fine for defamation and insulting the judiciary, his lawyer said yesterday.
Amara Abdallah Al Khitabi, 68, editor-in-chief of the private Al Umma newspaper, was sentenced in absentia after publishing an online list of the names of 87 judges and prosecutors he claimed were corrupt.
He was arrested in December 2012, one month after the list appeared, before being granted conditional release in April 2013 on health grounds.
According to his lawyer Ramadan Salam, the court delivered its verdict on August 17 when neither he nor Khitabi were present.
“My client wasn’t informed of the judgment until this week,” Salam said. He said that most courts in Tripoli were closed during August due to fighting between rival militant groups in the capital.afp
