APA-Dakar (Senegal) – The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by current Dakar mayor, Barthélémy Dias, who was convicted in 2012 over the murder of a man a year earlier.
The deputy mayor of Dakar is now in the ejector seat.
Dias can be stripped of his parliamentary mandate at any time at the request of the Minister of Justice.
The last paragraph of Article 61 of the Senegalese constitution states that “an MP who has been convicted of a criminal offence shall be struck off the list of deputies of the National Assembly at the request of the Minister of Justice.”
On Friday 22 December, the Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeal lodged by the lawyers of the deputy mayor of Dakar, Barthélémy Dias, seeking to overturn a sentence of two years’ imprisonment, including six months’ imprisonment, following the death of Ndiaga Diouf, in 2011.
“All the arguments put forward, including the plea of unconstitutionality and the final conviction by the deputy mayor’s lawyer, were declared inadmissible,” reported Pressafrik.
The Criminal Chamber of the Dakar Court of Appeal had upheld a verdict sentencing Mr Dias to two years’ imprisonment, six months of which were suspended.
The court also ordered him to pay 25 million CFA francs to the family of Ndiaga Diouf.
Diouf was killed in 2011 during the pre-election violence which gripped Dakar, when he and his comrades tried to storm the town hall in Mermoz-Sacré cœur, where Mr Dias is still mayor.
ARD/ac/lb/as/APA