The investigating judge, in charge of the rape case between Adji Sarr and Ousmane Sonko, issued an order to refer the case for trial by a Criminal Chamber. The charges seem sufficient to the Dean of Judges Oumar Maham Diallo. He thus followed the requisitions of the public prosecutor. A public hearing will therefore be held and each citizen will have the opportunity to attend the debates to form their own opinion, not only satisfied with what the lawyers or journalists say, fuelled sparingly by « leaks » with great risks of manipulation. The file will be opened in public and we will know the end of this story. It should be in everyone’s interest. Already, on March 15, 2021, we wrote in these columns, « Can’t Wait for an Adji Sarr–Ousmane Sonko public trial. »
The Courage of Adji Sarr in the Face of Ousmane Sonko’s Inconsistencies
Adji Raby Sarr declares himself a victim and has engaged in a fight of David against Goliath. She had the nerve to go after the stronger, more powerful, richer, more influential. If this poor orphan, to whom life has spared nothing, uses all her resources, courage and tenacity to agree to live martyrdom, to remain cloistered for her safety, to lose years of her life, by remaining persecuted and living with fear in her stomach, suffering the vilest insults and abuses, it is undoubtedly because she is armed with the truth. When I met her at the beginning of April 2021, I saw a poor innocent girl, fragile in many ways but who had only one hope, that of being heard, of being believed. I submitted her to my “interrogation”, to get an idea of her story. I told her then that I did not intend to make an article of our discussion.
Encouraged by her allies who watched over her, Adji Sarr had agreed to tell me her story with Ousmane Sonko. Leaving, she begged me: “Uncle, I only want one thing that people know the truth. Fourteen people were killed for this. He ruined my life. I would have preferred not to live anymore.” She took her head in tears, with: « He ruined my life. » I left this exchange saying around me that Adji Sarr seemed credible to me. Moreover, the young lady has never varied in her statements, even in the most torrid details. Her story in front of the investigating gendarmes is identical to that given in front of the rolling films of journalists or in the office of the investigating magistrate. Her youthful naivety testifies to the truth and authenticity of her words. For example, she claims to have had five sexual relations with Ousmane Sonko, on specific dates and with a certain regularity.
Ousmane Sonko, who refuses to answer the question of sexual intercourse, admits it no less, since he has never denied it and better still, he continues to systematically refuse a scientific test to confirm that the semen taken would not be his.This postulate evacuated, what still remains is if the sexual relations were consented or forced? One can well believe in the accusation of repeated rapes. Indeed, my peasant common sense leads me to believe that lovebirds who would maintain an idyll, would at least exchange their telephone numbers and would go on dates and perhaps not always at the woman’s place of work. When he had to go to the scene, Ousmane Sonko only had to warn the boss of the place, Ndèye Khady Ndiaye. For her part, the day Adji Sarr wanted to know when Ousmane Sonko would come to the Sweet Beauty salon, she spoke to Ndeye Khady Ndiaye but not directly to Ousmane Sonko. She should, logically, be able to join the latter if the sleeping arrangements were allowed. How would two consenting adults in an adulterous relationship go through another person to set up dates? The investigation could not establish any exchange between the two people, outside the Sweet Beauty salon.
The call or messaging histories of their respective phones did not reveal any exchange, let alone a sweet message or a “chat” between lovers! It is as if Ousmane Sonko arrived when it pleased him, took his shot and left as was the case in particular on December 21, 2020, December 31, 2020, January 14, 2021, and February 2, 2021.The first rape would have been committed several months earlier, but Adji Sarr no longer remembers the date. It was after this rape that she left the salon to go to her village before Ndeye Khady Ndiaye managed to bring her back after firm assurances. In view of all this, one comes to believe that he takes the girl for less than nothing, a vulgar and despicable sexual object whose identity he denies; Ousmane Sonko refrains from pronouncing the name of Adji Sarr.
Moreover, Adji Sarr appears much more credible than her vis-à-vis. While Adji Sarr remains constant in her words, Ousmane Sonko initially refused to respond to investigators at the cost of calling « Mortal Kombat« . Also, his version changes with each of his media outings. He started by stating on his Facebook page that he had never set foot in the Sweet Beauty salon before retracting and deleting the publication, especially since, taken aback by the revelation of the scandal, the salon manager had, already told the media that Ousmane Sonko was a frequent customer of the house but denied that rape could be committed in the premises. The press had also revealed that the gendarmerie investigation, thanks to a telephone requisition, had already established that Ousmane Sonko‘s telephone was blocked in the days and hours indicated by Adji Sarr. Ousmane Sonko will then serve the wacky version of therapeutic care for back pain which, it should be noted, seems to have disappeared since the outbreak of this affair. His relatives, including his wife, a physiotherapist, did not know about this sickness.
Ousmane Sonko will come up with the thesis of a state conspiracy in which he is truly the only one to believe because we do not see how the plotters could have convinced him to leave his home, at curfew hours, hiding from his two wives, his driver and his bodyguards, hooded, to go to Sweet Beauty, undress without being forced to do so and surrender to the hands of two masseuses, until we come to find, in the vagina of the woman who accuses him, of the sperm which it is today a question of analysing. It is to believe that a shaman officiating for the plotters bewitched him, hypnotised him, dispossessed him of his reason each time and thus led him to Sweet Beauty. “There is neither crime nor misdemeanour when the defendant was in a state of insanity at the time of the action, or when he was constrained by a force which he could not resist.” A new line of defence for Ousmane Sonko? it is forbidden to laugh, the subject is too serious!
Anyway, Ousmane Sonko ended up changing his defence strategy to now refuse to answer any questions about this case and stick to his conspiracy theory of which he will end up accusing everyone. Certainly, Ousmane Sonko would show a staggering cretinism if he manages to be fooled in a plot in which so many people would have been involved: Macky Sall, Antoine Diome, Serigne Bassirou Guèye, Lawyer Dior Diagne, Lawyer Gaby So, Mberry Sylla, Maodo Malick Mbaye, Mamadou Mamour Diallo, and his driver, Sidy Ameth Mbaye, General Moussa Fall, Dr Alfousseyni Gaye, Judges Samba Sall and today Oumar Maham Diallo amongst others. Commandant Abdou Mbengue who, at the time of the events, led the research section of the national gendarmerie in charge of the preliminary investigation, was also cited among the plotters. Ousmane Sonko even claimed that this officer-gendarme would have been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a reward. The truth is that Abdou Mbengue had benefited from a rank promotion in December 2020 and that the promotion should be effective from April 3, 2021. The Adji Sarr affair broke out on February 2, 2021.
In addition, Ousmane Sonko seemed to know what he was talking about when on January 20, 2019, during an electoral rally at the Place de la Nation, he warned that Macky Sall‘s regime will seek to stick moral matters on him in a bid to discredit him. You really have to be a perfect moron to know what was going on against you then and despite that, to have your habits in a brothel only to be the victim of a similar alleged plot two years later…
On another register, if not witness bribery how else can we qualify the fundraisers launched by the supporters of OusmaneSonko to collect more than 40 million francs for Captain Touré and as much for Ndèye Khady Ndiaye? Captain Touré is this gendarmerie officer who was sacked for having breached his oath and declared to have deliberately scuttled the investigation. Ousmane Sonko‘s lawyers called him as a witness in this case!
Once again, Adji Sarr clings to his version and Ousmane Sonko pursue lies and continues to insult and threaten judges, prosecutors, lawyers and journalists. The latest shift in his defence strategy is to refuse to answer any questions about the facts for which he is being prosecuted, while the complainant’s accusations are still so precise and detailed. “Despite the precision and consistency of Adji Sarr‘s statements, Ousmane Sonko limits himself to adopting an eloquent silence on questions related to the circumstances of the rapes; that the silence adopted by the defendant only accredits the accusations of the victim. If Adji Sarr was quite specific on the way in which the acts of penetration were committed on her person by Ousmane Sonko, in particular by the threat of making her lose her job and ruining her life thanks to his social stature, this one immured himself in a guilty silence on questions which could have exonerated him if indeed he was innocent (…) The fact of refusing to answer questions related to the circumstances of the rapes translated on the part of the accused of a lack of arguments to put forward in the face of the consistency and precision of the declarations of the civil party. » It can be said that this left the investigating judge no choice but to send him to trial and if such a strategy persists, Ousmane Sonko will risk incurring a judicial conviction. Certainly, the blackmail to confiscate civil peace and the threat to launch insurrectionary acts against the republican institutions, bravado which pushed many people, of various sides to work to bury the file without any form of trial, did not prosper and may never do so.
Ousmane Sonko, in Front of the Bar, the Remake of the Hissène Habré Trial?
The Dakar prosecutor’s office will have to set a date for the examination in a public hearing of the case. If a certain judicial practice made it possible to examine cases of rape in a closed-door hearing in order to preserve the privacy of the alleged victim, the Adji Sarr case should be the exception and for good reason! This affair has held public opinion in suspense over the past two years with its share of deaths and damage. The truth spread out in front of everyone will have to be a certain catharsis for Senegalese society. The intimacy of Adji Sarr? She has none! The poor thing was dirtied, ridiculed, put in the bed of Mr. Everybody, like a vulgar whore, without an ounce of dignity or self-esteem. On the contrary, if she is telling the truth, Adji Sarr will need a public trial to be able to hope to raise her head. If she is lying (and I in no way believe in this perspective), she would have to pay through social forfeiture for all the harm this affair has caused.
The trial will have to be public and better, broadcast on television so that no one is unaware of it! The case of the trial of Hissène Habré, the former Chadian dictator, before the Senegalese Justice had been broadcast on television. It would therefore not be a first for the Adji Sarr–Ousmane Sonko–Ndèye Khady Ndiaye trial to be followed live by viewers.The victim’s request for the trial to be televised must be heard. All the protagonists should ask for this so that the truth comes to light. Indeed, the Senegalese and public opinion as a whole need to know whether there was rape or not and whether there was a plot or not. In front of the cameras, everything should be said, spread out in the public square, without frills, without shadows or secretiveness. Will Ousmane Sonko refuse to appear at the trial? If necessary, he will have to be forced to do so, as Hissène Habré was or like any other person prosecuted in criminal proceedings. Will he continue to wallow in silence? It is his right to remain silent but that will not prevent the trial from proceeding. HissèneHabré chose not to speak in front of his victims and respond to their accusations, but the latter were heard and a verdict was pronounced by the judges, « in their soul and conscience ».
By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn
