Newspaper editor acquitted, commentator gets suspended sentence

A retired public servant who wrote an article that displeased Chad’s government was on Monday given a six-month suspended sentence by a court in Ndjamena, Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) reported. Garonde Djarama’s article in the ‘Ndjamena Hebdo’ weekly focussed on attacks against sub-Saharan Africans in Libya and the Chadian government’s reaction to the attacks. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 CFA francs (about US $65) and the symbolic sum of one CFA franc in damages. The weekly’s director, Oualatar Begoto, was acquitted but, as soon as he left the court he was taken away by the judicial police to be questioned on a second complaint, filed by the Libyan ambassador in Chad. He was later released.