The Tribunal des flagrants délits de Dakar delivered its verdict on Monday in the case between the Senegalese Agency for Rural Electrification (ASER) and Pape Mahawa Diouf, deputy spokesman of the Alliance for the Republic (APR). Found guilty of disseminating false news, the former director general of the Senegalese Tourism Promotion Agency has been sentenced to one month in prison with suspension. L’affaire has its origin in a television programme broadcast on 17 September 2025 on TFM. Invited by the political programme “Faram Facce”, Pape Mahawa Diouf publicly declared that “a misappropriation of 37 billion FCFA would have taken place within the ASER”, based on allegations attributed to the MP Thierno Alassane Sall. According to him, these funds had been “sourced, traced and diverted”, evoking a major scandal within the agency in charge of rural electrification in Senegal. The following day, on 18 September, the ASER reacted with an official communiqué, calling these proposals “diffamatories et mensongers”. The agency immediately filed a complaint for defamation and dissemination of false news.
ASER case: Pape Mahawa Diouf sentenced to one month of prison with suspension for dissemination of fake news
