BURUNDI: Journalist freed after five months in jail

Kabura, a correspondent for the state-owned news agency ABP, was freed after serving a five-month prison sentence for slandering the state, according to news reports and his lawyer. Aloys Kabura told Agence France-Presse he was glad to be free but that “I have just gone through a very unjust ordeal since being convicted after an illegal and irregular arrest.”

Kabura was arrested in the northern province of Kayenza on May 31 after a conversation in which he criticized Bujumbura police for attacking journalists in April. He was sentenced on September 18, and kept in jail. CPJ sources said they believed his imprisonment was part of a government clampdown on critical journalists.