Three soldiers will appear in public hearing this Friday before the Dakar High Court. They are being prosecuted “for crimes of undermining state security, undermining national defense and collusion with the enemy that is the MFDC”. They are Warrant Officer I. Sagna, Staff Sergeant P. Badji and Private 1st Class S. Coly.
The charges for which the three soldiers will appear on June 28 before the High Court of Dakar, in a public hearing, include, among others, “attacking state security, attacking national defense and collusion with the enemy that is the MFDC.”
The daily Le Témoin, which provides the information in its today’s publication, reveals that “the two non-commissioned officers I. Sagna, P. Badji and the soldier S. Coly were indicted by the dean of investigating judges for complicity in attack on state security, attack on national defense, endangering the lives of others, conspiracy against state authority.
In fact, they are accused of “collusion with the enemy”, that is to say of having given sensitive and strategic information to the combat leaders of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC).
The “serious events”, the newspaper continues, took place in 2022 during a security operation in the south of the country carried out by units of the National Army.
Thus, company commanders managed to “intercept conversations and other telephone numbers that gave the position of the soldiers”. Better still, on the ground, “Sergeant-Major P. Badji had tried to divert his section composed of around thirty men by indicating a different route from the one leading to the village of Djibidione”.
This was at that very moment, according to the prosecution, armed MFDC fighters were prepositioned on the “wrong path” that Sergeant-Major P. Badji wanted his section to take. A clumsy maneuver that suggested that the accused wanted to lead his own men into an ambush.
Heard in substance by the senior investigating judge Oumar Maham Diallo, Sergeant-Major Badji denied the facts, specifying that he did not recognize the Sindia-Djibidione axis although he claimed to know the right way. These are practically similar facts that are reproached to the other accused, namely Warrant Officer I. Sagna and Private S. Coly.
Because a thorough investigation made it possible to identify the three soldiers as being the “conscripts” and the “callers” who disclosed to the MFDC fighters information relating to the positions of the Army operating in Casamance, reports Le Témoin.
