A Guinean court on Thursday sentenced an opposition activist to three years in prison, in the latest instance of a critic of President Alpha Conde receiving a jail term. Conde, 83, won a third presidential term in the poor West African nation in a violently-disputed election last October. He ran after pushing through a new constitution in March 2020 which allowed him to sidestep the country's two-term limit, provoking mass protests. Dozens of people were killed during demonstrations, often in clashes with security forces. Hundreds were also arrested. On Thursday, a court in the capital Conakry sentenced Oumar Sylla, a member of the opposition coalition FNDC, to three years in prison for illegal assembly and "spreading fake news". About 30 opposition supporters demonstrated in front of the court in support of the activist, according to an AFP journalist, chanting "corrupt court" and other slogans. Sylla's lawyers said that they will appeal his sentence at Guinea's Supreme Court. Police originally arrested Sylla, also known as Fonike Mangue, in September for driving around the Conakry suburbs encouraging people to join a protest against a Conde third term. Prosecutors later brought charges in two separate cases. The first involved accusations that Sylla spread fake news and made death threats; the second, that he had disturbed public order and attended an unauthorised demonstration. A court acquitted Sylla in the first case in January, but in the second, he was sentenced to 11 months in prison. The opposition activist appealed his jail sentence and separately, prosecutors appealed the acquittal. An appeals court then decided to link the two cases together. Guinean courts have handed down jail terms to several other opposition activists in recent months, in what rights groups have described as a crackdown on dissent. A former opposition activist himself, Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 and won re-election in 2015 before doing so again last year. Critics accuse him of veering towards authoritarianism, however. bm/siu/eml/ri