During the examination of the draft law on the interpretation of the amnesty law, adopted on Wednesday 2 April, the deputies of the Pastef party requested the convocation of Adji Sarr. According to them, the rape accusations she had brought against Ousmane Sonko, then the main political opponent, were the triggering element of the murderous violence that marked Senegal between 2021 and 2023. When asked about the admissibility of such a request, the jurist-consultant El Amath Thiam, president of the organization “Justice sans frontières”, considers that it depends above all on the assessment of the magistrate in charge of the dossier. “It all depends on the judge’s decision. If the latter considers that Adji Sarr is concerned by an ongoing procedure, whether as a witness or a suspect, it can legally summon him or even issue an arrest warrant against him “, he explained in an interview with L’Observateur on Thursday 3 April. However, it specifies that an international arrest warrant may only be issued if the person concerned is a fugitive from justice. Or, this is not the case of Adji Sarr, who was not under the coup d’aucune poursuite judiciaire when she left Senegal, peu avant l’élection présidentielle du 24 mars 2024.
Amnesty and controversy: The summoning of Adji Sarr, an exigence without a legal basis?
