Before the suspension of the trial, the CREI had rejected the request for referral, but authorised the evacuation to France of Karim Wade’s chief accomplice Ibrahim Khalil said Bibo Bourgi for medical care. Initially, the court had refused evacuation requested by his lawyers.
Accused of illicit enrichment, Karim Wade must prove the origin of his estimated 117 billion CFA francs fortune, his eight luxury cars and his two houses acquired while he was in government.
Wade, 46, is also accused of fraudulently holding bank accounts in tax havens and owning shares in airport companies. If convicted, the son of former President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, faces a sentence ranging from five to ten years in prison.
‘Guilty’
Meanwhile, Benoit Sambou, the minister advisor to President Macky Sall, has told Senegalese journalists in an explosive interview which we will reproduce in Friday’s edition of The Standard that Karim Wade is guilty.
He said: “Personally, I have always considered that the misappropriation of public funds should be subject to the international criminal court. I theorised before coming to power, because I always considered it more serious to divert one billion, than take a gun and shoot everyone. Because he who steals one billion, deprives millions of people schools, education, health, among others. In this case, accountability is a requirement of good governance. This is a public commission and the Senegalese president has engaged in this process…”
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