Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko claimed on Monday to have survived an assassination attempt during his appearance at a politically charged trial that sparked deadly unrest last week.
Sonko, a fierce opponent of President Macky Sall, has been receiving medical treatment since he was allegedly sprayed with tear gas and manhandled while authorities escorted him to a courthouse on Thursday.
"We sent the product that was sprayed on me to France to find out what it was," Sonko said from a private clinic in the capital Dakar on Monday.Violence has flared in several cities since the opposition leader's defamation trial opened on Thursday, a case that could make him ineligible to contest next year's presidential elections.
In the town of Bignona, a Sonko stronghold in the south,"a kid was shot" on Thursday, Yankhoba Dieme, president of a local departmental council, told AFP, with an administrative official confirming the demonstrator's death. Convictions in either the defamation trial, which has been postponed until March 30, or a separate rape case that has not gone to court, could prevent Sonko from contesting the 2024 election.Sonko was arrested on the rape charge in March 2021 while en route to court for a hearing in another case.
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