Mogadishu (AFP) – A journalist who was jailed for six years in August for airing an interview with an al-Qaeda linked militia leader in Somalia’s breakaway Puntland state was freed Monday, sources said.
Abdifatah Jama Mire, director of Horsed Media, was arrested in mid-August after broadcasting a radio interview with Islamist commander Mohamed Said Atom whose militants are fighting the Puntland administration in Galgala area.
Mire was released on Monday after Puntland president Abdirahman Sheik Mohamed issued a statement pardoning him.
“The president forgave the journalist yesterday (Sunday) and he has been officially released from the prison in Bossaso where he was kept since August, he is free now,” Mohamed Kadar, a security officer in Bossaso told AFP.
“Though he has had a tough time …, he is fine now and his family is very happy today,” Nuh Muse, a colleague of Mire said.
The Puntland authorities, who have been battling Atom’s militia in Somalia’s northern mountainous Galgala region, had seen the interview as a security threat. Atom is on a UN Security Council watchlist.
Source: AFP
