Newspaper editors fined, spared jail terms

Manama: The editor-in-chief of Al Wasat, Mansour Al Jamri, was yesterday asked to pay a 1,000-dinar (Dh9,745) fine on charges of publishing false stories.

Walid Nouwehed, the managing editor of the Bahraini newspaper, Aqeel Mirza, the head of local news and an Iraqi journalist, tried in absentia, will also have to pay 1,000 dinars each for their alleged role in the publication of the stories.

No prison terms were handed to any of the four defendants in the case that followed the publication of reports in the paper, that according to the charges, were fabricated news and concocted stories to harm public safety and national interest.

The defendants said that they have been targeted in a campaign to discredit the daily.

Al Jamri, who was reinstated by the board of the daily after handing in his resignation, has been the editor-in-chief of Al Wasat since it was launched in 2002.

Meanwhile, the Bahrain Journalists Association (BJA) yesterday condemned a dawn attack on a Bahraini journalist and called for his protection. Jamal Zuwayyed, a columnist with Akhbar Al Khaleej, the oldest newspaper in circulation in Bahrain, said that he was attacked by three masked assailants after leaving a mosque.