Zakari Alzouma, the editor the independent weekly Opinions, was released Tuesday, but given a three-month suspended prison sentence for supposedly libelling interior minister Albadé Abouba, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
Alzouma was arrested on October 30 in response to a complaint by the interior minister about an article reporting that he “took advantage” of Prime Minister Seini Oumarou’s absence to award a US company a contract for the transport of pilgrims to Mecca that had already assigned to a local air transport company.
The local company, Sahel Airlines, sued the government and won its case. A Niamey court upheld the original contract and quashed the one with the US company.
“Niger’s legislation on press offences comes in handy for a government that does not want to give up its bad habits,” Paris-based RSF said soon after Alzouma's arrest. “By continuing to send journalists to prison, the authorities are just putting off the day when they will finally have to abandon their repressive ways. Furthermore, this kind of case puts Niger’s judges in embarrassing and contradictory situations resulting in absurdities.”
Alzouma was formally charged yesterday with being “caught in the act” of libel although he had already spent four days in police custody. He was due to appear in court in Niamey on November 4 but the hearing was postponed to November 11 on grounds that a piece of prosecution evidence was missing. Alzouma was placed in pre-trial custody in the main Niamey prison.
His lawyer told RSF he was “very shocked by the postponement, which is completely unwarranted.” He said he also failed to understand the prosecutors’ refusal, without offering any reason, to agree to Alzouma’s conditional release. “Zakari Alzouma is charged with a press offence, not a crime,” he said. “There is no reason for keeping him in detention.”
