Kamal al-Olufi, editor of the Al-Rai Al-A’am weekly, was imprisoned today, after Judge Hassan al-Akwa’a sentenced him to a year behind bars for insulting Islam and abusing the prophet.
The judge also ordered that the newspaper be shut down for six months, and that al-Olufi be banned from writing for the same period, upon completion of his prison sentence. Moreover, al-Olufi was also sentenced to pay for the publishing of the court verdict in all the newspapers in the country.
Al-Rai Al-A’am ran an image of the Danish paper Jyllands Posten’s homepage, on which with some of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed were visible. The Al-Rai Al-A’am was defending the prophet, and protested the Danish cartoons, according to its editor, Al-Olufi.
Defense lawyers Mohammed Naji Allawo and Khaled Al-Anesi described the verdict as a scandal. However, the lawyers of radical sheikh Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani, whose accusations against the press and various editors were rejected by the judge, were visibly happy and excited to hear the sentence. Zindani commissioned 21 prosecutors to prosecute newspapers and editors who republished images of the Danish cartoons.
Judge Al-Akwa’a’s announcement was received with mixed reactions. Some screamed “Long Live Justice!” and other voices cried out, “It Is Unjust!”
Smiling, the judge asked the head of defense team, after the conclusion of the session, “What do you think of my verdict?”
“It is wrong,” Allawo said.
The Yemen Observer and its editor-in-chief are scheduled to hear their verdicts in a similar case, by Judge Sahl Hamza in another Sana’a court on December 6.
