Former Senegalese PM Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare in police custody

A former Senegalese Prime minister has spent his first evening into custody.

After the summon of Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare was made public earlier this week, he was first questioned by the police Thursday (Mar. 9); then saved.

The septuagenarian had requested President Macky Sall whether or not he had financed an unamed French political determine.

The open letter printed final weekend, talked about an alleged donation of some $12 million to a French politician whose occasion is famend for in quotes ” hatred and rejection of others”.

The Senegalese authorities, in an announcement on Tuesday (Mar. 7), denied donating cash to Marine Le Pen who visited Sall in Dakar on January 18.

It mentioned it “rejects and strongly condemns such insinuations” which it described as “cowardly and unfounded”.

Soumare, was a finances minister after which prime minister from 2007 to 2009 below former president Abdoulaye Wade.

“We now have simply been notified that (Soumare) has been positioned in custody” after his interrogation by the police “on the request of the general public prosecutor”, Mame Adama Gueye, a defence lawyer, advised reporters on Thursday.

Marine Le Pen, the chief of France’s Nationwide Rally occasion was the runner up within the 2022 presidential race.

Rights defenders and Sall’s opponents say civil liberties in Senegal are coming below strain within the run-up to the February 2024 election.

The federal government refutes that there was any regression and says the legislation is utilized pretty in Senegal.

Sall, who was elected in 2012 and once more in 2019, has not confirmed or denied whether or not he intends to override the structure and run for a 3rd presidential time period in 2024.