DAKAR — Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye granted a pardon to journalist Rene Capain Bassene on April 4, 2024. Bassene was released from prison in Dakar the following day after serving part of a life sentence for the January 2018 massacre of 14 loggers in the Bayottes forest in Casamance.

Bassene had been convicted alongside two members of the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) for the killings. The MFDC, a separatist group active in southern Senegal, was blamed for the massacre but denied involvement. Senegalese authorities have long accused Casamance rebel fighters of financing their activities through trafficking wood and cannabis.

In subsequent legal developments, one of the MFDC members originally sentenced to life in prison was acquitted in August 2024. A court in Ziguinchor had previously handed down six-month suspended sentences to two other defendants and acquitted 11 others in the same case. One of the MFDC convicts had been tried in absentia.

Rene Capain Bassene spent most of his career covering the decades-long conflict between the MFDC and the Senegalese government and has written several books on the topic. The Committee to Protect Journalists reviewed court documents and conducted interviews with Bassene, his co-accused, and witnesses, revealing a severely flawed investigation. Several defendants who were later acquitted said they were forced to implicate Bassene or sign inaccurate interview records. The Senegalese president has sought to correct a grave miscarriage of justice against a journalist who has devoted his entire career to the resolution of the separatist conflict in Casamance," said Moussa Ngom, CPJ's francophone Africa representative.