BEIRUT: Two local newspapers were fined by the Publications Court Wednesday in separate cases.

The Publications Court made the ruling based on the August 2011 article in Al-Sharq newspaper, entitled, “Did [Justice Minister] Ibrahim Najjar exploit the Justice Ministry for his personal interest?”

The paper’s responsible editor, Yahya Shehadeh Jaber, was ordered to pay the LL10 million fine, while its owners, Aouni and Mouin Kaaki, were ordered to pay Najjar LL15 million in damages.

Also, the court ordered Al-Akhbar newspaper to pay fines for an article published on its front page in October 2008, about a 1983 assassination of Gen. Khalil Kanaan titled “The confessions of the killers.”

Editor Ibrahim al-Amin was ordered to pay LL6 million to the plaintiffs, while writer Antoine Harb was fined LL10 million and responsible editor Abdel-Ghani Sabbah LL6 million.