20100816
africanews

A local court in Somalia has sentenced a radio journalist to six years in jail for an interview with a notorious warlord Mohamed Said Atom.

Abdifatah Jama Mire, Director of Horseed Media in the semi-autonomous, was accused of the crime of allowing his staff to have an interview with a warlord against the Puntland.

"The journalist was sentenced to a six-year jail term for violating the anti-terror law in the constitution,” said prosecutor Farah Hassan Ismail.

Abdihakim Ahmed Guled, Puntland’s information minister, supported the decision.

A court in Bosaso, a commercial town 1,500 kilometres northeast of Mogadishu, also fined the journalist $500. The journalist had no lawyer and his family members were not permitted to witness the court proceedings.

Abdifatah Jama Mire, along with seven other journalists, was arrested Friday evening after dozens of Puntland’s security forces stormed Horseed Media - an independent broadcasting house - in Bosaso.

The seven other journalists were later released after being interrogated in the town’s central Police headquarters.

Mahad Musse, the executive director of Horseed Media, accused Puntland of punishing local media for talking to rebel leaders. “This is totally against the freedom of the press in Puntland”, he said in The Hague.

On Sunday, the Puntland Authority ordered not to broadcast reports and interviews about the radical Islamist group of Sheikh Atam.

Mohamed Said Atom is a notorious warlord and arms dealer based in the Sanaag Mountains straddling Puntland and Somaliland. Puntland and the breakaway region of Somaliland have been relatively stable compared with the central and southern Somalia in recent years.

Islamist insurgents run most of southern Somalia and government controls a few areas in the capital Mogadishu, where AU sent 5,000- strong peacekeepers. Western security agencies warned that Somalia is becoming a haven for international terrorists.

On Tuesday, Puntland has suspended VOA Somali services correspondent Nuh Muse Birjeb in Garowe.

The Journalist received a decree banning him from reporting in the region from the Puntland Minister of Information Mr Yassin Adan Roble. The semi-autonomous did not explain the reason behind their suspension.

It is not the first time Puntland has stopped VOA Somali services but in 2009, it was suspended VOA’s correspondents in the administration. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

In southren Somalia, Islamists have banned broadcasting BBC and VOA. In May, Al-Qaeda linked group of Al-Shabaab looted Somaliweyn Radio - an independent station house - in Mogadishu. the militants took FM transmitters and since that the station remians off air.

Mogadishu-based radios stopped airing music in April after Hizb al-Islam militias ordered them to take them off the airwaves because they claim the songs were un-Islamic. The Islamist have shot dead Sheikh Nur Abkey, who worked for the state-run Radio Mogadishu in May. he was the first reporter to be killed in Somalia this year.

Reporters Without Borders say nine journalists were killed in Somalia in 2009, including three killed in December when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a university graduation in Mogadishu.