Chad: 380 FACT fighters pardoned by transition released
Chadian Fact rebels listen to Justice Minister Mahamat Ahmat Alhabo's speech during a ceremony for their pardon at Klessoum prison, near N'Djamena, April 5, 2023. © Denis Sassou Gueipeur / AFP
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In Chad, 380 fighters of the Fact (Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad), sentenced to life imprisonment on March 21 and pardoned ten days ago by the transitional president, were released Wednesday morning, April 5. According to the government spokesman, this is a sign that Mahamat Idriss Déby wants to act for peace and definitive reconciliation in Chad.
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An official ceremony was held on Wednesday morning, April 5 at Klessoum prison, on the outskirts of N'Djamena, in the presence of many officials and relatives of the pardoned, as well as many journalists. It did not last long: barely forty minutes.
About thirty fighters symbolically representing the 380 pardoned received from the hands of the Minister of Justice Mahamat Ahmat Alhabo a certificate of release that opens the doors of the prison to them. Meanwhile, the pardoned were waiting for buses to take them home, according to prison authorities.
As a reminder, these men are part of a group of several hundred Fact fighters who were taken prisoner during the April 2021 offensive. It cost the life of former President Idriss Déby Itno.
Some 450 members of the FACT were sentenced two weeks ago to life imprisonment, including for "acts of terrorism" or "endangering the life of the head of state". This was before the transitional president granted his pardon to 380 of them, as he had pledged at the end of the 2022 national dialogue.
The Fact leader, along with 54 others convicted in absentia, did not benefit. For him, "it is a humanitarian gesture, no more, as we had already done by releasing for two years the soldiers of N'Djamena who were in our hands": Mahamat Mahdi Ali therefore calls for "negotiations for a definitive peace in Chad".
► Read also Chad: the opposition welcomes the presidential pardons but calls for more acts of appeasement
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- Chad
- Justice
- Mahamat Idriss Déby