Editor jailed over assassination story

The Lebanese editor of the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper has been sentenced in absentia to one year in jail for falsely reporting that Lebanon’s president was the target of an attempted assassination, judicial officials said in Beirut.

Ibrahim Awad, head of the Beirut bureau of the pan-Arab daily, was charged with “disturbing national security and harming the president’s dignity” in a December 31, 2001, report that said President Emile Lahoud was targeted by assassins while on holiday in Monte Carlo that month.