Muscat: Ebrahim Al Mamari, editor-in-chief of Al Zaman newspaper, was released on Monday after completing his sentence at Samayil Central Prison, Zaher Al Abri, a reporter at the same newspaper, tweeted on Monday.
Al Mamari posed for a photo with Al Abri outside the prison.
“Al Mamari just got out of prison. I hope Yousuf Al Haj, an editor at Al Zaman, will be released soon also,” tweeted Al Abri.
In August, the Omani government ordered Al Zaman to close its offices after it published two reports accusing top officials in the government of pressuring the judiciary to change a ruling in an inheritance case.
The government argued, in a statement run by the state-run news agency ONA, that the newspaper violated freedom of expression by running the reports.
The government promised legal action against the journalists but asserted that freedom of expression “remains an authentic value that cannot be evaded and that freedom of expression should become a responsible action that is not motivated by any personal impulses”.
In November, Ebrahim Al Mamari was handed a six-month sentence while Yousuf Al Haj, an editor at Al Zaman, was handed a one-year sentence.
Zaher Al Abri, a reporter at the same paper, was aqcuitted.
On July 27, Al Zaman ran a story under the headline ‘Supreme bodies tie the hands of justice’, accusing government officials of pressuring top Supreme Court judges to overturn a decision in the inheritance case.
Al Haj interviewed the vice-president of the Supreme Court who, according to the report, said that the judiciary was in a “pitiful state” and that there had been many violations.
Al Mamari, Al Haj and Al Abri, were held in detention for more than a month prior to the trial after the daily published reports in July about the alleged corruption in the country’s judicial system. They were later released on bail in October.
The three men were later convicted on charges of disturbing public order, undermining the prestige of the state, and misusing the internet.
The case, which has polarised public opinion in Oman, garnered regional and international attention.
