NIAMEY, July 23, 2008 (AFP) - The judge in the case of the imprisoned Radio France correspondent in Niger, Moussa Kaka, has ruled there is no case to answer and dropped charges, Radio Saraounia said Wednesday.

Kaka, who has been held since September 2007 on a charge of 'complicity to undermine the security of the state' for alleged contact with Tuareg rebels, had faced a possible life sentence if found guilty.

The journalist, himself a former head of Saraounia, should now be released pending an eventual appeal from the prosecution.

'The senior judge saw Moussa Kaka this morning to notify him that the charges were dropped,' Radio Sarounia said.

'The court found that there was no offence committed and therefore there was no reason to continue with the charge,' Soly Abdourahamane, a former prosecutor close to the court told the radio station.

The same judge had previously given Kaka a provisional release on June 23, but the prosecutor appealed against that decision.

Kaka, who works for Radio France International (RFI), has been the subject of a campaign to free him by various human rights watchdogs and press freedom groups.

He was alleged to have spoken to the rebels by phone calls, which were themselves taped by the state.

But the judge in February -- who was subsequently removed from the case -- found that the wiretaps could not be accepted as evidence in court.

President Mamadou Tandja's government refuses any dealings with the Tuareg rebels of the Movement of Niger People for Justice (MNJ), which emerged in February last year in the Agadez region of the landlocked, arid west African country and which has since threatened uranium mining there.

RFI was taken off the air in March by the Niger authorities for its support of their journalist, although broadcasts resumed last month.

The government has cracked down hard on all journalists believed to have had any dealings with the MNJ.

Ibrahim Manzo, manager of the fortnightly Air-Info, has been held since October 2007 for 'criminal association' for suspected links with the rebels.

In January two French journalists were freed after spending a month incarcerated on the same charge after they interviewed Tuareg rebels in the north of the country.