More than 400 rebels were sentenced to life imprisonment in Chad on Tuesday, in particular for “attacking the life” of former President Idriss Déby Itno, killed at the front in 2021 during their offensive, the prosecution announced to the AFP.
“More than 400 people have been sentenced” to life imprisonment for “act of terrorism, mercenary activity, enlistment of children in the army and attack on the life of the Head of State”, affirmed the Attorney General of N ‘Djamena Mahamat El-Hadj Abba Nana, without giving precise figures on the number of people sentenced.
He adds that “24 people were acquitted” at the end of this trial which opened more than a month ago.
The hearings of the Criminal Court of the N’Djamena Court of Appeal took place behind closed doors in the enclosure of the Klessoum prison, about twenty km south-east of the capital in a country regularly pointed to the finger for mass trials.
In the spring of 2021, the then most powerful rebel group, the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT), launched an offensive from its rear bases in Libya towards the capital N’Djamena.
On April 20, the army announced that Marshal Déby, who had ruled Chad for more than 30 years with an iron fist, had been killed at the front by the rebels and named one of his sons, the young general Mahamat Idriss Déby. Itno, President of the Republic for a period of transition, at the head of a military junta of 15 generals.
This verdict comes three months after 262 people, out of 401 accused including 80 minors, were sentenced to heavy prison terms, after being arrested before, during and after a demonstration which turned into a bloodbath on October 20, 2022.
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21/03/2023 15:39:22 – N’Djamena (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
