New costs comply with opposition chief’s arrest on Friday and aren’t associated to an alleged rape case that sparked lethal riots in June.
Senegal’s opposition chief Ousmane Sonko has been charged with plotting an revolt and different new offences, in accordance with the nation’s public prosecutor.
The announcement on Saturday comes weeks after Sonko, 49, was convicted on a separate cost of immoral behaviour and sentenced to 2 years in jail in a transfer that sparked lethal riots throughout the nation.
The brand new costs comply with the detention of Sonko – who has been serving his sentence at house – for questioning at a police courtroom within the Senegalese capital, Dakar, on Friday.
He stays in custody.
Abdou Karim Diop, Senegal’s public prosecutor, instructed reporters the brand new costs stem from feedback Sonko made and rallies he held in addition to different episodes since 2021, together with an incident at his house earlier than his arrest on Friday.
Along with fomenting revolt, the brand new costs embrace undermining state safety, acts geared toward jeopardising public safety and creating severe political unrest, felony affiliation with a terrorist physique and theft.
“This arrest has nothing to do with the [moral corruption] proceedings, for which he was tried in absentia,” Diop stated.
There was no instant remark from Sonko’s authorized group.
His arrest on Friday adopted a scuffle with safety forces stationed exterior his house, who he claimed have been filming him with out permission.
In June, the opposition chief was acquitted on costs of raping a girl who labored at a therapeutic massage parlour and making loss of life threats in opposition to her. However he was convicted on a lighter sentence of corrupting younger individuals, which incorporates utilizing one’s place of energy to have intercourse with individuals underneath 21 years previous.
Corrupting youth is a felony offence in Senegal which is punishable by as much as 5 years in jail and a nice of as much as greater than $6,000.
The conviction led to clashes throughout the nation between Sonko’s supporters and police wherein a minimum of 16 individuals have been killed and dozens wounded.
Sonko positioned third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is common with the nation’s youth. His supporters keep the fees in opposition to him are a part of a authorities effort to derail his candidacy within the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko has portrayed President Macky Sall as a would-be dictator, whereas the incumbent chief’s supporters say the opposition politician has sown instability.
Sall in early July eased tensions within the West African nation by asserting he wouldn’t search a controversial third mandate following months of ambiguity and hypothesis about his intentions.
