(N’Djamena) One hundred and thirty-nine people arrested during a demonstration repressed in a bloodbath in October in Chad were released Sunday evening after a month and a half of detention, announced the deputy public prosecutor of the Republic of N’Djamena.
In total, 80 of them received one to two years of suspended imprisonment and the 59 others were released after a mass trial of 401 people.
“All these people have a release order. From that moment they are free and can go home,” declared the second deputy prosecutor of N’Djamena, Rachid Mahamat Allamine.
This trial was held behind closed doors at the end of November for four days, without lawyers and without independent media, in the prison of Koro Toro 600 km northeast of N’Djamena, the capital, where the demonstrators arrested had been massively transferred.
During the same trial, 262 people were sentenced to two to three years in prison for “unauthorized assembly, destruction of property, arson, violence and assault and disturbing public order”.
The 139 men arrived at the Ministry of Justice in N’Djamena at the end of the day in military vehicles after a 48-hour drive from Koro Toro prison and looked tired, an AFP journalist noted.
They had been arrested in N’Djamena during and after the demonstration organized on October 20 against the government which had killed around fifty people, mainly in the capital, when the police opened fire on the slightest attempt to gather. .
The power had then recognized the arrest of 601 people for the capital and their transfer to the high security prison of Koro Toro.
Transitional President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno had accused them of wanting to lead an “insurrection” and an attempted “coup”.
On Thursday, 80 young people aged 13 to 18 were released on bail.
To date, the cases of more than 200 people out of the approximately 600 arrested are still under investigation by investigating judges.