Fake sex scandal leads to jail

Five journalists and a 10th grade literature teacher have been jailed in Mali for reporting on a high school essay assignment about an imaginary presidential sex scandal.

The first to be arrested was Seydine Oumar Diarra, editor of Info-Matin, who was jailed last week after publishing The Mistress of the President, an article featuring an interview with the teacher who assigned the essay about the fictional scandal in order to explore issues of moral corruption.

Mr Diarra was questioned for more than three hours, then taken to the capital's central prison on charges of offending the head of state.

The literature teacher, Bassirou Kassim Minta, was jailed on the same charge, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison