Somalia: Puntland authorities free jailed reporter

August 1st, 2011

Authorities in Puntland, Somalia’s northeastern semi-autonomous region, released reporter Faysal Mohamed Hassan on Sunday. Mohamed, who wrote for the private news site Hiiraan Online, was serving a prison sentence over a story claiming that two murdered men belonged to Puntland’s security personnel. The journalist had begun serving his one-year sentence in the port city of Bossasso following his 2nd July conviction on charges of endangering state security and publishing a “false news report.”