00:00The President of Senegal has pardoned a journalist convicted to life in prison over a 2018 massacre in the southern
00:07Casamans region.
00:08The Committee to Protect Journalist Watchdog said in a statement on Thursday,
00:13journalist Ron Capenj-Basen was convicted over the rounding up and killing of 14 loggers in January 2018 by armed
00:21individuals in the Bayot Forest in Casamans.
00:24The region is almost entirely separated from the rest of Senegal by the Gambia and is home to an independence
00:30rebellion that has simmered for 43 years.
00:33The organization said that President Basirudio Mai, fine on Tuesday, granted pardon to Basen, was freed from prison in Dakar
00:40the following day.
00:41Following the massacre of the loggers in 2018 in a protected forest, a separatist group, the Casamans Movement of Democratic
00:48Forces, MFDC, was blamed,
00:51but the organization denied all involvement.
00:54Casamans' rebel fighters used the forest as a base and the Senegalese authorities accused them of financing the activities by
01:01trafficking the wood as well as cannabis.
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