More than 400 rebels in Chad were handed life sentences on Tuesday following the death of former ruler Idriss Deby Itno, who was killed in 2021. The rebels were convicted of terrorism, using child soldiers and undermining Chad’s integrity and security, an appeals court ruled in a closed hearing on Tuesday.
The month-long mass trial charged 454 members of the Front For Change and Concord rebel group for killing longtime President Idriss Deby Itno, who died in murky circumstances in 2021 just two days after winning a sixth term in office. Two dozen people on trial were acquitted and it’s unclear exactly how many were convicted.
In addition to life imprisonment, leader of the rebel group, Mahamat Mahdi Ali has been fined some $30 million to be paid to Chad’s government for damages.
Lawyers for the defendants said they’ll appeal the verdict with Chad’s Supreme Court. “As this decision has been made public by the court of appeal, there is only the right to appeal,” said Lokoulde Francis, a lawyer for the accused.
After a mass trial, they were sentenced for “acts of terrorism, mercenary, recruitment of child soldiers and assaulting the head of state,” said Mahamat El-Hadj Abba Nana, prosecutor for the capital N’Djamena.
He did not give a detailed figure for those jailed, saying only that “more than 400 were sentenced” to life, while 24 other defendants were acquitted.
The trial opened last month behind closed doors at Klessoum prison, 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of the capital.
In early 2021, the country’s main rebel group, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), launched an offensive on the north of the country from bases in Libya.
On April 20, the army announced that Marshal Deby, Chad’s iron-fisted ruler for the previous three decades, had died from wounds sustained in the fighting.
His death was announced just a day after he had been declared victor of a presidential election that gave him a sixth term in office. His sons, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, who took the helm at the head of a 15-member military junta.
Several defendants were also ordered to pay damages of more than $32 million to the state and $1.6 million to the ex-president’s family, said FACT lawyer Francis Lokoulde, who suggested there would be an appeal.
“It’s a masquerade that follows no law, no convention”, said FACT leader Mahamat Mahdi Ali.
“All that comes from a willingness to criminalise our struggle. The verdict is a non-event,” he said.
Defence lawyers had protested at the very short notice after the mass trial had been announced just days before it started on February 13.
Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno had promised to hold free elections within 18 months, but that deadline was extended for another two years.
Protests last October to mark the initially promised end to military rule met with a deadly crackdown.
The Chadian authorities first put the death toll in the capital at around 50, before updating that figure to 73 deaths. Opposition groups say the number is higher.
The Geneva-based World Organization against Torture (OMCT) accused the Chadian authorities of summary executions and torture.
A total of 262 people were then handed terms of between two and three years after a trial in the notorious Koro Toro prison, isolated in the desert 600 kilometres from N’Djamena.
The remote location and proceedings drew condemnation from international human rights groups.
Human Rights Watch not only denounced the mass trial but also the murders, forced disappearances and torture that preceded it.
The main leaders of Chad’s opposition now live in hiding or in exile, even though the junta lifted a suspension of several opposition parties in January.
Despite criticism of his authoritarian rule, the elder Deby was a key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the unstable Sahel, particularly due to the relative strength of Chad’s military.
Deby seized power in 1990 when his rebel forces overthrew then-President Hissene Habre, who was later convicted of human rights abuses at an international tribunal in Senegal. Deby ran the country for more than three decades and died of unspecified injuries when he visited troops fighting the rebel group, which was seeking to gain control of the oil-rich Central African nation. No details of his death were made public.
Hours after Deby’s death, Chad’s military named his son, Mahamat Idriss Deby, as the country’s interim leader for what was intended to be an 18-month period. However, last year the government announced it was extending the transition for two more years, which led to protests across the country.