Violence clashes in Senegal after Ousmane Sonko’s conviction leave Nine Dead.
The Senegalese opposition leader was sentenced to two years in prison for ‘corruption of youth’ but acquitted of rape. Violence has broken out in several towns across the country including Dakar and Ziguinchor, where Sonko is mayor.
The anger is palpable in Dakar. On Thursday 1 June, the verdict in the country’s most controversial political trial appeased neither the victim nor the accused. In a court surrounded by a thick police cordon, judges sentenced Ousmane Sonko, Senegal’s main opposition figure, to two years in prison for “corruption of youth” – a sentence that makes him ineligible for the February 2024 presidential election. However, he was acquitted of the charges of death threats and rape, for which the prosecutor had requested 10 years of imprisonment.
As soon as Sonko’s conviction went public, violence broke out in several towns across the country. Nine people were killed in clashes between riot police and Sonko supporters, according to Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome.
Sonko, the president of the African Patriots for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party, was accused by Adji Sarr, a former employee of the Sweet Beauty massage parlor, of repeated rape between December 2020 and February 2021. She was 21 at the time. “I’m devastated,” Sarr told Le Monde shortly after leaving the court which she attended, in contrast to Sonko who boycotted the hearings. Ndèye Khady Ndiaye, the owner of the massage parlor, was sentenced to two years in prison for “incitement to debauchery.” Together with Sonko, she will have to pay Sarr 20 million CFA francs (some €30,000) in damages.
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“Ousmane Sonko had told me several times that no one would believe me. And he was right. I don’t give a damn about those two years in prison! He raped me, that’s the truth. I’m shocked. It’s all for nothing. He won, I lost,” she said in a tired voice.
Supporters of the opposition figure do not feel they have won, however. “This verdict on command is the final step in a plot hatched by Macky Sall and his henchmen,” according to a statement issued Thursday afternoon from the national PASTEF headquarters, calling on “the Senegalese people” to “take to the streets” and asking “the forces of order and the army to be on [Sonko’s] side.”
Violence in Dakar and Ziguinchor
In a capital where many shopkeepers left their curtains down on Thursday and many schools remained closed, a few dozen Sonko supporters protested against the verdict. Young people, Sonko’s main electoral base, gathered around Dakar University, blocking Avenue Cheikh-Anta-Diop with burnt tires, stones and poles. Groups of protesters pelted police with stones and tear gas. Several buses from the Faculty of Medicine, the Department of History and the country’s leading school of journalism were set on fire and their offices ransacked.
“He was accused of rape and he is convicted of corrupting youth, what kind of justice is that?” said one protester, “we’re going to block roads to try and show the population and President Macky Sall that we don’t agree with him and his justice system.” Violence was also reported in Ziguinchor, the capital of Casamance, where Sonko is mayor, as well as in Mbour, Kaolack (west) and Saint-Louis (north).
The opposition has been united in denouncing the conviction of one of its leaders. “This iniquitous and totally unjustified sentence reflects a conscious desire to keep him out of the presidential race in February 2024,” said Malick Gakou, one of the leaders of the Yewwi Askan Wi (YAW) coalition, of which PASTEF is a member.
“It’s a surprising verdict. Ousmane Sonko was charged with rape and death threats. However, as these two charges were not retained, we would have expected an outright acquittal. This decision confirms the government’s attempt to eliminate Ousmane Sonko from the presidential race. I fear that this unjust verdict will rekindle tensions, but it will strengthen resistance against a third term for Macky Sall,” said Aminata Touré, a former minister of the Senegalese president who switched to the opposition in 2022, denouncing President Sall’s alleged plan to run for another term.
De facto house arrest
“What was at stake for the government was the free functioning of the Senegalese justice system. Despite all the intimidation and threats attempted by the defendant’s camp, justice, as usual, exercised its full jurisdiction without pressure and in the most independent manner,” said government spokesman and Commerce Minister Abdou Karim Fofana.
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Senegal’s president is accused by his opponents of having hatched a plot to keep his most dangerous rival out of the presidential race in February 2024. The two-year prison sentence deprives Sonko of his civil rights, according to Bamba Cissé, one of his lawyers, who claimed that his client cannot appeal because he was tried in absentia. His eligibility is also threatened by another verdict in which he received a suspended six-month sentence for defamation against Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang on May 8. That case is now before the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, Sonko’s family, lawyers, and the press were not allowed near his home in Cité Keur Gorgui, Dakar. A heavy police presence surrounded the residence where he has been under de facto house arrest since he was forcibly returned to the capital on May 28.
Authorities put an end to Sonko’s “freedom caravan” from Ziguinchor, the opposition figure’s stronghold 500 kilometers south of Dakar. Sonko had called on his supporters to join him and promised President Sall “a final battle” and gatsa gatsa (“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”). For someone who is generally quite expressive on social media, the sentenced political leader remained silent as of Thursday early afternoon. Authorities have not announced whether they will detain Sonko, and his lawyers have warned that their client has no intention of turning himself in.
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