Even though he has been in detention since late July and is engaged in a legal battle with the government and the judiciary, lawyers for Ousmane Sonko, a prominent member of the Senegalese opposition, and his disbanded party claimed on Thursday that he had been admitted to a hospital intensive care unit.
In interviews with AFP, a number of government representatives failed to confirm or deny that Mr. Sonko, a declared candidate for president in 2024, had been hospitalised in an intensive care unit. By the end of July, he was imprisoned on a number of counts, including inciting an uprising, engaging in criminal activity in support of a terrorist organisation, and damaging national security.
Sonko, who claims to be the target of a plot to keep him out of the presidential election, went on hunger strike on July 30. The authorities questioned whether he was strictly observing the strike.
One of Mr. Sonko’s lawyers, Me Ciré Clédor Ly, told AFP that he went to the intensive care unit of Dakar’s main hospital on Thursday afternoon, where he obtained confirmation of his client’s presence. He preferred not to approach him, but Mr. Sonko “has not recovered his senses since yesterday”, he said.
Another of Mr. Sonko’s lawyers, Me Bamba Cissé, also reported that he had been admitted to intensive care.
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Mr. Sonko’s Facebook page, which is still active, reports that he was “admitted to the intensive care unit of Dakar’s main hospital following a fainting spell” on Wednesday evening.
Leaders of his party, Pastef, whose dissolution the authorities announced at the end of July, relayed the message on social networks.
Sonko, 49, has been hospitalized since August 6. His supporters and lawyers have been sounding the alarm about his state of health ever since.
The confrontation between Mr. Sonko and the authorities has given rise to several episodes of deadly protest since his indictment in 2021 in an affair of sexuality. President Macky Sall’s most restive opponent received a six-month suspended prison sentence in May for defamation of a minister, and a two-year prison sentence in June for “corruption of youth” in the vice case.
Mr. Sonko cries conspiracy. The presidential camp accuses him of harboring an insurrectionary project.
Mr. Sonko’s lawyers insist that he remains eligible despite his convictions. On the contrary, the Ministry of Justice said a week ago that he had been stripped of his electoral rights.
A source close to the Ministry of the Interior, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the subject, told AFP on Thursday that Mr. Sonko had been struck off the electoral roll following his conviction in June, and that he had been notified of this. Mr. Sonko can lodge an appeal, she said.
