Opponent Ousmane Sonko, whose legal adventures have punctuated political life in Senegal in recent months, was arrested on Friday in Dakar, in particular for having “called for insurrection”, according to his lawyer.
“Ousmane Sonko was arrested, there were gendarmes in front of his house,” Ousseynou Ly, spokesperson for Mr. Sonko’s Pastef party, told AFP. Djibril Gueye Ndiaye, the opponent’s chief of protocol, said the gendarmerie “came to take him”.
A senior security official confirmed to AFP that Ousmane Sonko was arrested without disclosing the reason. The Ministries of the Interior and of Justice could not be reached by telephone to explain this arrest, which took place late Friday afternoon.
Abdoulaye Tall, one of Ousmane Sonko’s lawyers, told AFP he was arrested for “stealing a cell phone” and for “calling for an insurrection”.
Before his arrest, the political opponent had declared Friday afternoon on social networks that the security forces stationed in front of his home had filmed him. He said he took one of those phones and asked that the footage be deleted, a request he was denied. “I ask the people to stand ready to face this endless abuse,” he concluded his message.
“Ousmane Sonko has just been locked up in the cellar of the Tribunal,” wrote French lawyer Juan Branco, who defends the Senegalese opponent, in a message on Twitter, renamed “X”.
Ousmane Sonko has just been locked up in the basement of the Tribunal.
Friday evening, several police vehicles including two anti-riot trucks were parked in front of the main courthouse in Dakar, AFP journalists reported. They then left the scene, without anyone knowing where they went.
People gathered outside the Dakar home of Ousmane Sonko, AFP reported. The police roadblocks installed in front of the opponent’s home since May 28 for reasons of “public order and national security” had been lifted on Monday.
Ousmane Sonko was sentenced on June 1 to two years in prison in a vice case, a verdict which makes him ineligible as it stands, according to his lawyers and legal experts. His conviction in early June caused the most serious unrest in years in Senegal, which left 16 dead according to the authorities, around thirty according to the opposition.
The spokesman for the Senegalese government, Abdou Karim Fofana, had recently indicated 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”.
The opponent, invested candidate for the next presidential election by his party, was also sentenced on May 8 to six months in prison suspended during an appeal trial for defamation, a sentence widely perceived as making him ineligible for the election. But he has not yet exhausted his appeals to the Supreme Court.