A total of 262 protesters have been sentenced to between two and three years in prison for the October 20 protests against Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby, when half a hundred people were killed and more than 300 injured in a harsh crackdown by security forces in what is now known as Black Thursday.
Prosecutor Mussa Wade Yibrin told a press conference of these sentences handed down by a court sitting in the Koro Toro prison and following a massive trial behind closed doors, without lawyers and without independent media.
A total of 401 people arrested during the demonstration were tried in a trial that concluded last Friday, December 2.
A further 80 defendants have been given suspended sentences of between one and two years in prison and 59 more defendants have been found not guilty. Another 80 minors detained in Koro Toro have now been returned to N’Djamena to be tried by a juvenile judge.
The prosecutor made the sentence public three days after the end of the trial, following his return to N’Djamena, located 600 kilometers from Koro Toro. The Chadian Bar Association has criticized the process and warned that a trial without defense lawyers is a denial of justice.
The leader of Chad’s ruling military junta, Mahamat Idriss Déby, has previously described the protests as an «organized insurrection» supported by «foreign powers» and accused the demonstrators of «cold-bloodedly killing civilians and murdering members of the security forces» with a view to generating a «civil war».
The protests erupted after the junta decided to extend for another two years the mandate of Déby, who initially planned to step down to return power to a civilian government. He was appointed president by the army in 2021 following the death of his father, Idriss Déby Itno, who had led the country since 1990.
