Two Senegalese MPs, Massata Samb and Mamadou Niang, both from the Yewwi Askan Wi coalition (the main opposition party) were sentenced on Monday 2 January to six months in prison. They are accused of having attacked their colleague Amy Ndiaye of the presidential coalition in the middle of a parliamentary session.
On 1 December 2022, during the vote on the budget of the Ministry of Justice, Massata Samb had slapped Amy Ndiaye of the presidential coalition while she was in the visiting room. In the fight that broke out in the hemicycle that day, Mamadou Niang had also kicked the lady in the stomach.
Three months pregnant, according to a medical certificate issued by the maternity ward of Dakar’s main hospital, Amy Ndiaye filed a complaint against her two assailants. During the trial, which took place on 19 December, the two MPs justified their act by the fact that the victim had made irreverent and offensive remarks about their religious leader, Moustapha Sy.
The court of flagrante delicto in Dakar, which handled the case, found the two MPs guilty of assault and battery which caused the victim to suffer a temporary incapacity to work for 23 days. As a result, in addition to the six-month prison sentence, the court ordered the two MPs to pay a fine of 5 million CFA francs (USD 8100) to the complainant.
According to the lawyers of the two MPs, the parliamentary immunity of their clients had been violated. But the Court found that the offence was established in relation to the attack that went viral on social networks.
