Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, a candidate for the 2024 presidential election, was arrested on Friday July 28, two members of his party told Agence France-Presse, without any specific reason being given. for this arrest. “Ousmane Sonko was arrested, there were gendarmes outside his house,” said Ousseynou Ly, spokesperson for Mr. Sonko’s Pastef party. Djibril Gueye Ndiaye, the opponent’s chief of protocol, added that the gendarmerie had “came to take him”.
Mr. Sonko was sentenced on June 1 to two years in prison for “corruption of youth”, a verdict which makes him ineligible as he stands, according to his lawyers and legal experts. His conviction at the beginning of June caused the most serious disturbances for years in Senegal, which left 16 dead according to the authorities, around thirty according to the opposition.
The opponent was also sentenced to six months in prison suspended on May 8 during an appeal trial for defamation, a sentence widely perceived as making him ineligible for the presidential election. But he has not yet exhausted his appeals to the Supreme Court.
On Monday, July 24, a security device erected around Mr. Sonko’s home in Dakar had been lifted, the Senegalese government spokesman explaining that the latter no longer issued “calls for insurrection”. Abdou Karim Fofana, however, believed that the decision to arrest the opponent or not was up to the public prosecutor. The Minister of Justice claimed immediately after his conviction that Mr. Sonko could be arrested “at any time”.