Banned Senegal radio back on air

MFDC moderates signed a peace deal with the government last year

One of Senegal's biggest private radio stations is back on the air after the government shut it down on Monday for interviewing a separatist leader.

Salif Sadio is a hardliner of the MFDC that campaigns for the independence of the southern province of Casamance.

The government said Sud FM's interview had posed a threat to state security, but detained staff were now free.

Rebroadcasts of the interview were banned and the case had been referred to the state prosecutor, it said.

Radical

"The suspension has been lifted and all the persons incriminated, arrested and questioned... have been freed," the Ministry of Information statement said.

The BBC's Tidiane Sy in the capital, Dakar, says Mr Sadio is one of the radical leaders of the military wing of the Movement for the Democratic Forces of the Casamance.

Last December, the government signed a peace deal with the with the political leader of the MFDC, ending a 22-year-old rebellion fuelled by complaints among Casamance's population that they were being marginalised by the more numerous Wollof people of northern Senegal.

In the interview, Mr Sadio, who has been fighting in the bush for years, said: "I'll go home once we've chased Senegal out of Casamance. The simplest solution is that Senegal leaves," AFP reports.