Chad court sentences former prime minister, opposition leader to 20 years in jail
A court in Chad jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra for 20 years Saturday, convicting him of hate speech, xenophobia and having incited a massacre.
The court in N'Djamena jailed Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno's fiercest critics, for his role in inciting inter-communal violence in which 42 people were killed on May 14.
Most of the massacre victims were women and children in Mandakao, southwestern Chad, according to the court. On Friday, the state prosecutor had called for a 25-year sentence.
Masra was arrested on May 16, charged with "inciting hatred, revolt, forming and complicity with armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson and desecration of graves".
Watch moreChad's former Prime Minister taken into custody, party official says
He stood trial with nearly 70 other men accused of having taken part in the killings.
Originally from Chad's south, he comes from the Ngambaye ethnic group and enjoys wide popularity among the predominantly Christian and animist populations of the south.
Those groups feel marginalised by the largely Muslim-dominated regime in the capital N'Djamena.
During the trial, Masra's lawyers argued that no concrete evidence against him had been presented to the court.
He went on hunger strike in jail for nearly a month in June, his lawyers said at the time.
Masra had left Chad after a bloody crackdown on his followers in 2022, only returning under an amnesty agreed in 2024.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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