Morocco Journalist to Serve 3 Years on 'Terror' Charges

A Moroccan appeals court on Monday reduced the sentence of a journalist convicted on Syria-linked terror charges from four to three years, his lawyer told Agence France Presse.

The court reduced journalist Moustapha Hasnaoui's sentence by one year, lawyer Khaled al-Idriss said, after he was convicted on terror charges in July.

Hasnaoui had been working for the Moroccan pro-Salafist Assabil magazine when he was convicted of being a part of a "criminal group" and "trying to conceal information about terrorist crimes," the public prosecutor said.

Hasnaoui had traveled to Turkey to write a report on Moroccan jihadists passing through on their way to fight against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

His lawyer said Turkish authorities turned the journalist back at the airport and that he had not entered the country.

Idriss added that his client would appeal the sentence.

A second Moroccan journalist, Ali Anouzla, whose imprisonment on charges of "aiding terrorism" provoked condemnation at home and abroad, was freed on bail Friday after a month in prison.