The unrest in Ziguinchor, a town in southern Senegal, occurred just one day before the start of Sonko’s rape trial in Dakar, the country’s capital. Sonko was prosecuted after a lady said he abused her while she worked at a massage parlour.
Sonko faces up to ten years in prison if convicted and is forbidden from running for president.
According to local authorities, the officer was killed when a police armored vehicle struck and killed him while reversing. The administration expressed condolences to the officer’s family and described his death as a “tragic accident.”
Clashes broke out outside Sonko’s residence, where he has been residing while refusing to appear in Dakar for the rape trial. Sonko ran against Senegal’s President Macky Sall in the 2019 presidential election and was elected mayor of Ziguinchor the previous year.
Beginning Sunday evening, supporters gathered outside his home, fearing that police would arrest him and bring him to court. Messages on social media have surfaced asking followers to act as Sonko’s “shields” and safeguard their leader from arrest.
Sonko received a 6-month suspended prison term in a defamation case recently and vowed that he would no longer reply to court summonses unless his safety was secured.
At a news conference in Paris on Monday (May. 15), his lawyers told reporters that Sonko had not yet received a summons but would appear “if conditions were met.”
Senegalese police officers were deployed in Ziguinchor and elsewhere in Senegal.
