Malian journalist sentenced for defaming National Assembly President

A court in Bamako on Wednesday sentenced head of private Malian newspaper Le Figaro to six months in prison for defaming the President of the National Assembly, Issaka Sidibe.

The court did not specify whether the sentence pronounced against the editor Ammy Baba Cissé, was fixed-term or suspended, reported a correspondent of the AFP.

The convicted journalist was not arrested Wednesday after the announcement of the sentence.

In addition to defamation, Cissé was also accused of “assault on honour and dignity” in a complaint by the President of the National Assembly in connection with an article about sexual scandal in parliament.

In two issues published in February, the paper had evoked a “flagrant offense of adultery” against Sidibé.

“Guilty of defamation, Mali’s Figaro editor, Ammy Baba Cissé, is sentenced to six months in prison” and “to pay (a) symbolic franc,” said the president of the court of Mali at Commune I in Bamako.

“First, the court did not specify whether it is six months suspended or fxed prison term. We will appeal,” the lawyer of the journalist Hassane Diop told AFP.