Three days after pardoning 380 rebels sentenced to life imprisonment, Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno has reoffended. On Monday (March 27th), he pardoned 259 of the 262 protesters sentenced to prison after a demonstration against the government, according to a decree seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

These demonstrators had been sentenced to two to three years in prison for "acts of unauthorized assembly, destruction of property, arson, violence and assault, assault and battery, disturbance of public order (...)".

These men, mostly young people, had responded to the call to demonstrate from the opposition against the extension of General Déby's two-year term in power in October.

>> Read: Chad's crackdown 'has shattered what little hope has been raised by national dialogue'

This presidential pardon "is a gesture of forgiveness to allow all the sons and daughters of Chad to build their country on new foundations," Communication Minister and government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh told AFP.

"These people will regain their freedom, their family and resume the course of their lives," said the coordinator of the collective of their lawyers, Frédéric Dainonet, who sees in this initiative a desire of the government "to ease tensions".

Investigation continues

But the investigation is not yet complete for another group, including "some" detainees "are still in Koro Toro prison," he told AFP.

The investigation is still ongoing for "twenty" people detained in N'Djamena, and a "hundred" others in Koro Toro prison, said Laguerre Ndjerandi, the president of the N'Djamena Bar.

According to the government, 621 people were arrested during the protest in the capital and then transported to Koro Toro, a high-security prison in the middle of the desert 600 km north of N'Djamena, where they were then tried in a mass trial, without lawyers or independent media, after a month and a half of detention.

The authorities had first announced that about fifty people had died during this "Black Thursday", mainly young people shot dead in the capital by the police, before reassessing this toll to 73 dead. However, NGOs had denounced underestimated figures.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) had denounced in a report at the end of January "murders", "deaths in custody", "enforced disappearances" and "acts of torture" linked to the repression of demonstrations by the authorities.

Second presidential pardon

This is the second presidential pardon granted in three days. On Saturday, a group of 380 rebels of the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad (FACT), sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the death of former President Idriss Déby Itno, benefited from the same decision of the head of state.

They were also found guilty of "acts of terrorism, mercenarism, and endangering the security of the national territory".

In the spring of 2021, the FACT, the most powerful rebel group at the time, launched an offensive from its rear bases in Libya towards the capital N'Djamena.

On 20 April, the army announced that Marshal Déby, who had ruled Chad for more than 30 years with an iron fist, had been killed at the front by rebels and appointed one of his sons, the young General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, President of the Republic for a transitional period, to head a military junta of 15 generals.

But at the end of the transition period in October, he extended his presidency on the recommendation of a "National Reconciliation Dialogue" boycotted by the vast majority of the political opposition and several of the largest armed rebel groups.

With AFP

The summary of the week France 24 invites you to look back on the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news with you everywhere! Download the France 24 app