Staff Writer
General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the leader of Chad, has pardoned an additional 110 persons who were given prison sentences after deadly demonstrations against the government last October.
Last October, protests against the prolongation of Deby’s transitional rule broke out in N’Djamena, the country’s capital, and a number of other towns.
After his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled for 30 years, was assassinated during anti-rebel operations, Deby was appointed head of state by the army in April 2021.
The decree, which Deby signed, stated that “persons tried and sentenced for acts of unlawful assembly, intentional assault and battery, arson, (and) destruction of property… following the events of October 20… benefit from a presidential pardon.”
On October 20 and the days that followed, more than 600 young men, including at least 80 minors, were detained in N’Djamena before being transported to a jail in the far-off desert town of Koro Toro.
After being detained for several months, they were tried without a lawyer.
While the remaining individuals received suspended sentences or were released, more than half received prison sentences.
Local and international human rights organizations asserted that dozens or perhaps hundreds of people were tortured or killed en route to Koro Toro; the authorities refuted these claims.
According to Mahamat El-Hadj Abba Nana, public prosecutor at the N’Djamena Court of Appeal, the 110 prisoners who were pardoned had been tried and given prison terms ranging from 18 months to five years in Koro Toro, N’Djamena, and Moundou, the second-largest city in the nation.
The Chadian government has now pardoned 436 persons who were all found guilty of taking part in the protests last October.
A similar ruling resulted in the pardon of 259 protesters who had been given prison sentences at the end of March, and another wave of 67 persons in May.
