On Thursday, Sept. 22, two Peruvian journalists accused of defamation were sentenced to two years in prison, although the sentences were suspended, reported the Press and Society Institute.
Fritz Du Bois, editor of the newspaper Perú 21, and Gessler Ojeda, Perú 21 correspondent in the city of Arequipa, in southern Peru, went taken to court for publishing stories about the supposed links between the family of legislator Ana María Solórzano and prostitution businesses.
The suspended sentence includes house arrest for the journalists, who must fulfill certain rules of conduct, like obtaining judicial authorization for anything they do, according to the newspaper El Comercio. The sentence also forces them to pay a civil fine of about $11,000.
Ojeda, the reporter, was sentenced for the story "The Dark Links of Humala's No. 1," and Du Bois for an opinion article in the same March 10 edition of the newspaper.
The journalists' lawyer said that he would appeal the ruling, considering it "arbitrary, illegal and biased," according to the site Una Fuente.
