Senegal to expel French-Spanish lawyer Juan Branco

Dakar, Senegal (AFP):

A Senegalese judge on Monday placed French-Spanish lawyer Juan Branco, who was indicted a day earlier, under judicial supervision ahead of his expulsion to France, his lawyer and a senior justice ministry official told AFP.

Branco, who is one of the lawyers defending the Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko, was arrested Friday in Mauritania and handed over to Senegalese authorities.

“He is in a police station and will be taken to the airport,” Robin Binsard, one of Branco’s Paris-based lawyers, told AFP.

“He is exhausted but relieved to be released”.

Binsard said Branco was taken out of prison on Monday morning and presented to a judge, who placed him under judicial supervision.

A senior official from the justice ministry confirmed the information.

Branco had refused to drink and eat after his arrest.

He was indicted on Sunday with charges including conspiracy, spreading false news, acts likely to compromise public security or cause serious political unrest, and contempt of court, according to his lawyers.

Branco gained notoriety in Senegal after joining the legal team of Sonko, a firebrand politician and President Macky Sall’s fiercest critic, who has faced a series of legal troubles since 2021.

On June 22, Branco said he had filed a criminal complaint against Sall in France for “crimes against humanity”, and had requested a probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

His initiatives also named Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome and gendarmerie chief General Moussa Fall.

The move sparked Senegal’s ire, with Foreign Minister Aissata Tall Sall lashing it as “childish and puerile”.