New fees apply opposition chief’s arrest on Friday and aren’t associated with an alleged rape case that sparked fatal riots in June.
Senegal’s opposition chief Ousmane Sonko has been charged with plotting an rebel and different new offences, in keeping with the rustic’s public prosecutor.
The announcement on Saturday comes weeks after Sonko, 49, was once convicted on a separate price of immoral behaviour and sentenced to 2 years in jail in a transfer that sparked fatal riots around the nation.
The brand new fees apply the detention of Sonko – who has been serving his sentence at house – for wondering at a police courtroom within the Senegalese capital, Dakar, on Friday.
He stays in custody.
Abdou Karim Diop, Senegal’s public prosecutor, advised journalists the brand new fees stem from feedback Sonko made and rallies he held in addition to different episodes since 2021, together with an incident at his house prior to his arrest on Friday.
Along with fomenting rebel, the brand new fees come with undermining state safety, acts geared toward jeopardising public safety and developing critical political unrest, prison affiliation with a terrorist frame and robbery.
“This arrest has not anything to do with the [moral corruption] court cases, for which he was once attempted in absentia,” Diop mentioned.
There was once no instant remark from Sonko’s criminal workforce.
His arrest on Friday adopted a scuffle with safety forces stationed out of doors his house, who he claimed had been filming him with out permission.
In June, the opposition chief was once acquitted on fees of raping a girl who labored at a therapeutic massage parlour and making demise threats towards her. However he was once convicted on a lighter sentence of corrupting younger other folks, which contains the usage of one’s place of energy to have intercourse with other folks below 21 years outdated.
Corrupting adolescence is a prison offence in Senegal which is punishable through as much as 5 years in jail and a tremendous of as much as greater than $6,000.
The conviction ended in clashes around the nation between Sonko’s supporters and police during which a minimum of 16 other folks had been killed and dozens wounded.
Sonko positioned 3rd in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is well-liked by the rustic’s adolescence. His supporters take care of the costs towards him are a part of a central authority effort to derail his candidacy within the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko has portrayed President Macky Sall as a would-be dictator, whilst the incumbent chief’s supporters say the opposition flesh presser has sown instability.
Sall in early July eased tensions within the West African country through saying he would now not search a arguable 3rd mandate following months of ambiguity and hypothesis about his intentions.
