Senegal holds pretrial hearing against ex-president's son

DAKAR, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Karim Wade, the son to Senegal's ex- president and a former minister currently in police custody, is on Wednesday to appear before the investigation commission of the Anti-Corruption Court (CREI).

The announcement was made on Tuesday by the special prosecutor of the CREI, Alioune Ndao.

"We believe that we have done 4/5 of our work. We leave the investigation commission of the CREI court to take up the matter starting tomorrow (Wednesday)," he told the media.

Karim, a son to former president Abdoulaye Wade, was detained at the police station in the West African country's capital Dakar together with six of his accomplices.

The special prosecutor of CREI, who carried out investigations both in Senegal and abroad, asked him to explain the source of his wealth being estimated at 694 billion FCFA (1.388 billion U. S. dollars).

Wade's lawyers produced a 3,000-page document to justify his wealth. But the justifications did not convince the prosecutor who decided to arrest him.

The substitute special prosecutor, Antoine Diome, said investigators had "clearly shown how Wade used pseudonyms to fraudulently acquire wealth."

"The investigators discovered mountains of complex financial transactions that were carried out in the key sectors of our economy by off-shore companies that are mostly based in Panama, the British Virgin Islands and Luxembourg," Diome said.