The two deputies of the Senegalese opposition who hit a colleague of the majority in the National Assembly were imprisoned, Thursday, December 15 in Dakar, and will be judged Monday for “intentional blows and injuries”, we learned from of their defence.
Massata Samb and Mamadou Niang caused a national outburst on 1er December, when the first slapped parliamentarian Amy Ndiaye and the second kicked her in the stomach, in the middle of a session and in public. They accused him of having made disrespectful remarks against the leader of their party. The leader of the Unity and Gathering Party (PUR), Serigne Moustapha Sy, is a religious leader who, without being a deputy, is very influential in Senegal.
Images of the altercation, during which Amy Ndiaye tried to throw a chair after being slapped, circulated repeatedly in the media and on social networks. This confrontation was seen as symptomatic of tensions between the opposition and the majority, of violence against women, but also of the untouchable status of marabouts like Moustapha Sy.
Risk of losing the baby
Amy Ndiaye, mayor of the town of Gniby (center), was hospitalized. A medical certificate brandished by her camp says that she is pregnant and that there is a risk of loss of the baby. The police were seized by the prosecution following a letter from the President of the National Assembly demanding prosecution, according to the lawyer of the deputy.
Massata Samb and Mamadou Niang disappeared for several days, while the majority and the opposition argued verbally about responsibility for such excesses, the follow-up to be given and the need to lift their parliamentary immunity. They showed up at the Assembly on Monday and were taken to the Criminal Investigations Division (judicial police), where they were taken into custody on Tuesday, local press reported.
They were brought to the prosecutor’s office in Dakar on Thursday, according to their defence. “They asserted their immunity, but the prosecutor felt it necessary to place them today under a warrant of committal. They will be tried on Monday in flagrante delicto., one of their lawyers, Abdy Nar Ndiaye, told AFP. They still voted by proxy Thursday, during the vote of the motion of censure tabled by the opposition against the government of Prime Minister Amadou Bâ, appointed in September by President Macky Sall. The motion was rejected by Parliament.
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