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Yemen drops charges against opposition editor
SANAA - Yemen has dropped charges against an opposition party journalist who was detained for months before being freed on health grounds in March, the defence ministry's Sep26.net news website said on Friday.President Ali Abdullah Saleh gave instructions to halt judicial proceedings against Mohammed al-Maqaleh and to suspend his trial,' the website reported. The measure, which definitively closes the case' of Maqaleh, was taken on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Yemen's unity which will be celebrated on Saturday, it added. Maqaleh, editor-in-chief of the Socialist Party's Aleshteraki.net website, was abducted on a Sanaa street in September and his whereabouts only became known several months later after the government said it was holding him. Freed in March for health and humanitarian reasons,' according to a Yemeni official, Maqaleh was on trial for his writings on the war in the north between Shiite rebels and the army, which ended with a February truce. The Yemen Journalists Syndicate said Maqaleh's trial had been illegal and unconstitutional,' and that he was tortured.' Posted by: Steve White 2010-05-22 |
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