Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko has been reportedly arrested.
According to AFP, this was disclosed by two members of his party and a senior security official.
“Ousmane Sonko was arrested — there were gendarmes in front of his house,” said Ousseynou Ly, a spokesman for Sonko’s Pastef party.
The politician’s protocol officer, Djibril Gueye Ndiaye, claimed that the gendarmerie arrived and “took” him.
The arrest of Sonko was confirmed to AFP by a top security official, who did not provide any other information.
The apprehension occurred during the latter part of the afternoon on Friday, which coincided with a nationally recognised holiday in the country of Senegal.
In a communication shared on the social media platform Twitter, which is currently undergoing a rebranding process as X, the French legal practitioner Juan Branco, acting as the legal representative for Sonko, conveyed that the aforementioned political figure had been confined to the lower level of a courthouse.
Contact with the interior and justice ministries was not possible through telephone.
Sonko, a very charismatic political figure and contender for the presidency, was legally convicted in June and subsequently sentenced to a two-year imprisonment term for the offence of morally corrupting a young female individual. This conviction has resulted in his disqualification from eligibility for the presidential race.
