KENYA: Tabloid editor released after presidential pardon

Muchoki, editor of the private weekly tabloid The Independent, was released on a presidential pardon after serving three months of a one-year prison sentence for criminal defamation, according to local journalists. His appeal of the verdict was never heard.

Muchoki was charged with libel in connection with a 2004 story alleging an affair between a government minister and a Catholic priest. A concurrent civil suit brought by the minister on the same charge was pending, he told CPJ.