The ruling is the latest twist in a saga that has sparked unrest in Senegal, a generally stable state in a troubled region.
A Senegalese court has handed down a six-month suspended sentence to opposition leader Ousmane Sonko over an appeal in a defamation case that could jeopardize his candidacy for president next year.
He was given a two-month suspended sentence in March and a hefty fine in March for defaming Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang. On Monday, an appeals court in Dakar extended the term to six months, possibly making Sonko ineligible for the vote.
Baboucar Cisse, a lawyer for the minister, told reporters that the verdict would remove Sonko from the 2024 presidential election if upheld after a six-day appeal period.
Sonko, 48, came third in the 2019 presidential election and plans to run for re-election in 2024, but two lawsuits could ruin his candidacy.
A spokesman for Sonko’s party, Ousseynou Ly, and supporters on social media also said the ruling would nullify his bid if upheld, but the politician’s lawyers left the court without commenting on questions.
Moussa Diaw, an associate professor of political science at Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, told reporters that “if this sentence is final, chances are his candidacy will be inadmissible.”
The court also ordered Sonko to pay 200 million CFA francs (about $330,000) to Niang.
Sonko failed to show up on Monday after warning he would no longer respond to court summons without guarantees for his safety.
Al Jazeera correspondent Nicolas Haque reports that the opposition leader has already called for a national civil disobedience movement and said he would not attend court because of a lack of confidence in government institutions to administer justice.
Sonko will also face charges of “rape and death threats” later this month following a complaint filed by an employee at a beauty salon where he went for a massage.
“We have never seen a citizen in the entire world who has been summoned to court, turning himself in, being the subject of so much ferocity, so much brutality and an attempt at near-physical assassination,” he said on social media on Sunday.
He appeared to be referring to his claims of a police assassination attempt in March during his forced transfer to the Dakar court during the first defamation trial.
“It is no longer justice, it is judicial banditry, which is why I have made the decision, still in the context of my civil disobedience campaign, to no longer cooperate with this justice,” Sonko said without any security guarantees.
Sonko not only appealed his defamation conviction, but also denied the rape allegation. He said he is the victim of a plot by President Macky Sall to torpedo his 2024 candidacy.
The government has denied the allegation, claiming that Sonko staged demonstrations to avoid justice.
Attorney General Ibrahima Bakhoum had called on the court to arrest and jail Sonko.
Sonko’s court hearings are often a source of tension and near paralysis of traffic in the capital, as he usually travels to court with a procession of sympathizers.
The 2021 rape charge against Sonko sparked riots that left at least 12 people dead in the West African country, which is considered politically stable in a turbulent region.
Sall’s refusal to rule out running for a controversial third term as president — which his opponents say would be unconstitutional — has also heightened political tensions.