Updated

The editor of a Malian newspaper has been released on bail, after spending more than three weeks in jail following the publication of a letter critical of the coup leader's salary.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that Boukary Daou, editor-in-chief of The Republican newspaper, was allowed to leave the capital's central prison Tuesday afternoon. He was imprisoned 27 days ago, after his newspaper published an open letter from an army captain, who called on his fellow soldiers to mutiny if coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo's $8,000-a-month salary is not reduced.

Sanogo led the March 2012 coup which plunged Mali into chaos. Al-Qaida's local affiliate took advantage of the power vacuum to seize more than half of Mali's territory.