Presidential Candidate Arrested

,,,,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.

AFP