Court remands Senegalese ex-president’s son over corruption charges

The Supreme Court of Senegal on Thursday rejected an appeal filed by the lawyer representing Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.

The verdict means he will serve out his six-year prison sentence on corruption charges also dashing the opposition’s hopes that Wade could be able to run in the presidential election in 2017.

Wade in March was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 138 million CFA francs (24 million dollars).

The 46-year-old was taken into custody two years ago under suspicion of having siphoned off about 200 million dollars in state funds while he served as super minister in his father’s government.

Among his duties were overseeing several financially healthy portfolios, including the ministries for development cooperation, air transport, infrastructure and energy.

While he has consistently denied allegations of corruption, members of his Senegalese Democratic Party have referred to the case as politically motivated.

“We are not surprised that the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, this is a political affair and we will set up a political response to all our detractors, ‘’ Farba Senghor, member of the party, said.

Senghor further said that President Macky Sall was behind it all to restrict public freedoms.