In jail for two and a half years, former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall was released on Sunday, September 29, thanks to a presidential pardon, and was cheered by a cheering crowd during a night crossing. of the Senegalese capital.

Claimed by the support of this rival of Senegalese President Macky Sall, the release of Khalifa Sall surprised the Senegalese, although it intervenes in a context of political relaxation orchestrated by Muslim religious leaders.

From the news, his supporters gathered in front of Rebeuss prison in Dakar, where Khalifa Sall came out around 20:00. They then accompanied his convoy through several districts of the capital, including Grand Yoff, electoral bastion 63-year-old socialist, AFP journalists have found.

Khalifa Sall, unrelated to President Macky Sall, received a "full surrender of the main sentences" for which he was finally sentenced in August 2018, according to a decree issued in the afternoon of Sunday. Two of his former collaborators, sentenced at the same time as him, were also pardoned.

Khalifa Sall was convicted of "forgery and swindling of public money" in the so-called "advance cash" case, dealing with the management of the Dakar City Hall, which he won in 2009 and 2014.

He was convicted of the hijacking of about 2.5 million euros, taken between 2011 and 2015 on the coffers of the city. He denies these accusations, arguing that the mayors of Dakar have always had at their disposal a sum intended for their political action.

easing

Khalifa Sall, whose judicial troubles began when he broke away from the coalition built around President Macky Sall, has always considered that these prosecutions were aimed at preventing him from running for president in February 2019, which had denied the leaders of the majority.

Arrested in March 2017, he had campaigned from his cell for the legislative elections in July of the same year. Elected, he could not sit. He was also dismissed from his post as mayor and could not run for president in 2019, won in the first round by Macky Sall, who has been in power since 2012.

If he has a grace, Khalifa Sall is not amnestied. The fine to which he was sentenced remains due and his conviction is not erased, which in principle does not allow him to recover his civil rights, including the right to stand for election.

The Alliance pour la Republique (APR), the presidential party, has welcomed this "courageous and republican decision which is part of the president's desire to relax and consolidate social peace".

The process of reaching out to the opposition has accelerated under the aegis of the spiritual leader of the powerful brotherhood of the Mourides, who presided over the spectacular reconciliation between Macky Sall and his predecessor, Abdoulaye Wade, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new mosque in Dakar.

According to a source familiar with the case, it also concerns the case of another opponent, son and former minister of Abdoulaye Wade, Karim. The latter was sentenced in 2015 to six years in prison and more than 210 million euros fine for "illicit enrichment", which he has always denied.

After three years in prison, he received a presidential pardon and was released on June 24, 2016, but he lives abroad and remains under threat of further arrest if he returns to Senegal without paying his fine. .

With AFP