Former presidential candidate sentenced

A Guinean court on Monday sentenced opposition leader Alpha Conde to five months in prison after finding him guilty of sedition. Conde, a former professor of politics at the Sorbonne University in Paris, called those who testified against him "false witnesses". The state prosecutor had called for a life prison term for "endangering the state", assaulting law enforcement officers and fraudulently transferring foreign exchange. "I am an intellectual. My fight is a fight of ideas. My weapons are my pen and my speech," AFP quoted Conde as saying. Conde, a parliamentarian, was arrested in December 1998 near the border with Cote d'Ivoire, a day after a presidential election in which he finished third amid allegations of vote rigging. Seven of the 47 people accused with him were given sentences ranging from 18 months to three years. The others were released or acquitted. A team of international defence lawyers working on behalf of Conde withdrew after the judge rejected their calls for the case to be thrown out on the grounds that it violated his parliamentary immunity.