Chad carries out first executions since 1991
NDJAMENA, Nov 6 (AFP) — Chad on Thursday ignored protests from human rights groups and carried out the death penalty for the first time since 1991, executing eight people after vowing to crack down on unrest in the impoverished desert state.
“This will give a good lesson to wrongdoers, even if they are foreigners,” Territorial Administration Minister Routouang Yoma Golom told AFP.
Six Chadians and a Sudanese man were publicly executed by firing squad early Thursday in the capital Ndjamena, while Golom said an eighth person was shot dead at the same time in the eastern town of Abeche.
Four of those executed in Ndjamena had been sentenced to death for the September 25 murder of Sudanese businessman and lawmaker Acheik Ibni Oumar Idriss Youssouf, while the other three had been convicted in other criminal cases.
The man executed in Abeche was convicted in 1998 of murdering a policeman and several members of his own family.
The seven were executed at an army shooting range in the presence of Golom, the justice minister and chief prosecutor, and Chadian journalists.
The Chadian League of Human Rights had Wednesday denounced the upcoming execution of the four for the murder of the Sudanese oilman.
The International Federation of Human Rights had also issued a statement urging the authorities to stay the executions and adopt a moratorium leading to the abolition of the death penalty.
Those executed for the murder of the Sudanese businessman had asked for a presidential pardon and for their sentences to be appealed, said appeal court president Paul Wadana, adding that their requests had been refused.
The Chadian government recently vowed to crack down on unrest in the former French colony, which like many African countries is rich in mineral resources but where most of the population lives in great poverty.
Chad, a landlocked country in the southern Sahara, last month joined the elite club of oil-producing nations when it officially inaugurated a facility that pumps oil from Doba in the south to Cameroon’s Atlantic port of Kribi.
The murdered Sudanese oilman was head of the recently created Chad Petroleum company, in charge of building a small refinery near the Sedigui oil field to provide petroleum products for domestic consumption.
The Sedigui project was originally entrusted to another Sudanese company, Concorp International, but its contract was cancelled because of an embezzlement scandal.
Chad’s history since independence has been marked by unrest stemming largely from tension between the Muslim north and the mainly Christian south.
In 1998 the latest armed uprising began in the north. A peace deal was signed in early 2002, but has been marred by continuing clashes between rebels and government forces.