Senegal’s top opposition leader has been sentenced to a two-month suspended sentence for defamation.
Ousmane Sonko was convicted on Thursday of spreading false statements and must also pay around $330,000 to Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang, who accused the politician of defamation and public insults.
“This is a historic day for Senegal. Many had said the trial would not take place, but it came. This is a victory,” the cabinet minister’s lawyer, El-hadji Diouf, told reporters in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.
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The case follows allegations made by Sonko, 48, against the tourism minister during a press conference late last year. He had claimed the minister had stolen $47 million from a government agency.
Security around the courtroom was tight Thursday as small groups of people gathered to support Sonko. Sonko was not present at the hearing. His lawyers had requested that the trial be postponed, saying Sonko was ill after tear gas was fired earlier in the month.
A prominent opposition figure in Senegalese politics has been convicted of defaming the country’s tourism minister. (Fox News)
Sonko’s party called the verdict unfair.
“The verdict is abnormal…they decided to enforce it, but they know it’s not normal,” El Malick Ndiaye, national communications secretary for Sonko’s Pastef Les Patriotes party, told The Associated Press. Ndiaye said he wasn’t sure if Sonko would appeal the verdict and said Sonko was meeting with his attorneys to discuss options.
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Sonko’s supporters see the charges against him as the latest attempt to end his political career, including his likely presidential bid in 2024. Sonko finished third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election, urging President Macky Sall to publicly state he didn’t going to do a third term.
The ruling party says Sall should be allowed to run after a 2016 constitutional amendment – made during Sall’s presidency – that changed the president’s term to five years.
Along with the defamation lawsuit, Sonko is also facing rape allegations stemming from allegations by a female employee who said she was assaulted by him at a massage parlor. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and cannot run for president. No date is set for this process.
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Thursday’s conviction will not affect Sonko’s ability to run for president because defamation is not included in the election law as one of the grounds that would bar someone from running.
Source : www.foxnews.com