Just In : Trouble Looms As Presidential Candidate Arrested (DETAILS)
Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko was arrested Friday, two members of his party and a senior security official told AFP, though no precise reasons were given.
“Ousmane Sonko was arrested — there were gendarmes in front of his house,” said Ousseynou Ly, a spokesman for Sonko’s Pastef party.
Djibril Gueye Ndiaye, the politician’s head of protocol, said the gendarmerie came and “took” him.
A senior security official confirmed to AFP that Sonko had been arrested but did not specify the reasons.
The arrest happened in the late afternoon on Friday, a national holiday in Senegal.
In a message posted to Twitter, which is being rebranded as X, the French lawyer Juan Branco, who represents Sonko, said the politician had been locked up in a courthouse basement.
The interior and justice ministries could not be reached by telephone.
Sonko, a firebrand politician and presidential candidate, was sentenced in June to two years in prison for morally corrupting a young woman, a conviction that renders him ineligible.
He was tried in absentia.
On July 24, a security detail that had confined him to his home in Dakar was lifted. It had been in place since May 28.
