Three journalists for the private weekly The Chronicle were detained for one day in May and charged with criminal libel in connection with an article alleging that Malawi's then-attorney general was involved in the theft of a computer.

General Manager Jika Nkolokosa and reporter Maxwell Ng'ambi of the private media group Blantyre Newspapers Limited were charged with criminal libel in May. The charge stemmed from a December 2005 article in Blantyre's weekly Malawi News, which alleged that the health minister at that time, Hetherwick Ntaba, was being audited for failing to account for public funds, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa.

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