More than 400 FACT rebels sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of Chadian President Idriss Déby

March 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –

More than 400 members of the rebel coalition Front for Alternation and Harmony in Chad (FACT) have been sentenced this Tuesday to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism in the context of the death in April 2021 of the then president of the country, Idriss Déby .

The N’Djamena Court of Appeal has announced that 24 defendants have been acquitted for lack of evidence, while 440 FACT members have been sentenced to life imprisonment for various charges, including acts of terrorism, recruitment of child soldiers in the Army, attack on state security and murder.

Among the defendants is the leader of FACT, Mahamat Mahdi Ali, who has been sentenced ‘in absentia’ by the court, which has also ordered that both he and the others involved pay 20,000 million CFA francs (30.4 million euros ) in damages to the State, as well as 1,000 million (1.53 million) to the family and heirs of Idriss Déby, the Alwidha news portal has collected.

The members of FACT, a rebel coalition that launched a military offensive from its bases in Libya in April 2021, have been tried after the Chadian Justice approved in March 2021 a law to create a specialized court to address acts of terrorism .

Déby’s death led his son, Mahamat Idriss Déby, to take charge of the country, heading a military junta. Days before he died on the front lines, the electoral commission had confirmed the victory of the president in the elections held on April 11, 2021.

Déby, who came to power in 1990 through a coup against the dictator Hissène Habré, has since won every election and amended the Constitution twice to be able to continue running at the polls, including one in 2005 to end to the limit of two terms, reimposed in 2018, without affecting him.