Senegal seeks 10-year jail sentence in opposition leader’s rape trial

Senegal’s public prosecutor on Wednesday asked judges overseeing the rape trial of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to find him guilty and sentence him to 10 years in jail, which would likely bar him for running for president in elections next year.
The verdict is expected on June 1.
Sonko, 48, is accused of sexually assaulting and making death threats to a woman who worked in a massage parlour in 2021. He denies wrongdoing and has boycotted the court proceedings.
Particularly popular among youths, Sonko has been embroiled in a legal saga he says is a ploy to bar him from polls in February 2024. He was handed a suspended prison sentence in a separate libel case this month, which he has appealed.
Violent protests have taken place in Senegal since Sonko was first detained for alleged rape in 2021. Supporters usually take to the street when he is in court, although no unrest occurred when the rape trial resumed in Sonko’s absence on Tuesday.
Testimony continued late into the night as judges heard Sonko’s accuser and the massage parlour’s former owner Khady Ndiaye among others.