/ 21 January 2001

SUDAN JAILS EDITOR FOR ?DEFAMATORY? ARTICLE

A Sudanese court has jailed an editor-in-chief until her newspaper publishes an apology for a ”defamatory” article alleging financial mismanagement in the courts, her newspaper, Al-Rai Al-Akher, reported on Thursday. The independent daily said Amal Abbas had been transferred to Omdurman prison for women, near Khartoum. The judiciary recently filed a lawsuit against the newspaper and the writer, Salah al-Din Ahmed Abdallah, claiming that the article published last July was defamatory. It also issued a complaint to the national press council, which ordered the newspaper to publish a clarification from the judiciary, which it did, and then closed the paper for one day as punishment.