A magistrate court in Dakar convicted Express News, a pro-government newspaper of defaming Pape Samba Mboup, the Chief Director in the office ofPresident Abdoulaye Wade.
The court sentenced the newspaper‘s editor Abdourakhmane Diallo to a six-month prison term in absentia and also fined Farba Senghor, head of the Express News group FCFA 20million (about US$ 44, 445) as damages to the plaintiff.
Mboup initiated the action following a publication on June 23 accusing him of being a “political mercenary.” The article also described Mboup: “as a permanent danger for the regime who violates state secrecy”
The newspaper also described the chief of staff as “a drunkard who has no credibility because of alcohol”.