Chad court jails ex-PM, opposition leader for 20 years

A court in Chad imprisoned the former prime minister and opposition leader Masra on Saturday for 20 years and provoked him of hate speech, xenophobia and a massacre.

The N’djamena Court imprisoned Masra, one of the most violent critics of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itrno, because of the role of provoking the violence between communes on May 14, where 42 people were killed.

According to the court, most of the victims of the massacre were women and children in Southwest Mandakao. On Friday, the state prosecutor called for 25 years of imprisonment.

“Our customer was only an object of humiliation.” He said.

“On the basis of an empty file, he was sentenced to the basis of assumptions and in the absence of evidence.”

What we witnessed was the armament of the courts.

The Transformers party and activists said they would receive a “special message” later on Saturday.

Masra was arrested on May 16 two days after violence and was accused of “hate, rebellion, armed gangs and guilt, guilt in murder, arson, and the sanctity of tombs”.

He was tried with about 70 men accused of participating in the murders.

– presidential candidate –

Originally from the south of Chad, Masra comes from the ngambaye ethnic group and has a wide popular popularity among the Christian and south animist populations.

These groups are largely marginalized by the Muslim dominant regime in the capital N’djamena.

During the hearing, Masra’s lawyers argued that the court had no concrete evidence against him.

His lawyers were sentenced to about one month in prison in June.

Like other opposition leaders, Masra left Chad in 2022 after a bloody pressure on his followers, and returned only under an amnesty in 2024.

Masra, who was educated as an economist in France and Cameroon, became a violent rival of the ruling officials before he named the Prime Minister five months before the Presidential elections.

After signing a compromise agreement with Deby, he made a premiere from January last year to May.

Masra faced Deby in the 2024 Presidential elections and won 18.5 percent against 61.3 percent of Deby’s 61.3 percent, but claimed victory.

A local resource from the May 14 murders thought that they had spread from a dispute to the limitation of grazing and limiting agricultural areas between ethnic fulani nomadic shepherds and local Ngambaye farmers.

It is estimated that conflicts between Pastoralists and established farmers caused more than 1,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries in the Chad between 2021 and 2024 by the International Crisis Group.

YAS-LNF/JJ/GV