{{ Senegalese police used teargas to disperse hundreds of supporters of Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, as his corruption trial entered its second day on Monday.}}<\/p>\n
Witnesses said police fired teargas after Wade’s supporters became angry at being refused entry to Dakar’s Palais de Justice where a special court is handling the case that has raised political tensions in the usually stable West African state.<\/p>\n
Wade, nicknamed “the minister of heaven and earth” because he controlled five ministries when his father was in power, is accused of illegally amassing a fortune of 117 billion CFA francs ($240 million).<\/p>\n
Wade, who denies any wrongdoing, said at the opening of his trial last week that he was a “political prisoner”. [ID:nL6N0Q65TD] His supporters say the trial is part of a plot by the government to purge its political rivals.<\/p>\n
Government officials and prosecution lawyers say the trial sets an important precedent for African countries to try their former leaders themselves.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyers sought for the case to be dismissed on Monday, saying the court was not competent to judge their client.<\/p>\n
A Wade supporter briefly disrupted proceedings by approaching the bar and shouting that the judge was corrupt, before being escorted out by officials. ($1 = 488.6100 Central African CFA Franc BEACs)<\/p>\n
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{{ Senegalese police used teargas to disperse hundreds of supporters of Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, as his corruption trial entered its second day on Monday.}} Witnesses said police fired teargas after Wade’s supporters became angry at being refused entry to Dakar’s Palais de Justice where a special court is handling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053396,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15722.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15722"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15722"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}