A court in N’Djamena sentenced former prime minister and opposition leader Succès Masra to 20 years’ imprisonment on Saturday, convicting him of hate speech, xenophobia, and inciting a massacre.
The court held Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno’s most vocal critics, responsible for instigating inter-communal violence in Mandakao, southwestern Chad, on 14 May, which left 42 people dead—most of them women and children. On Friday, the state prosecutor had requested a 25-year sentence.
Lead defence lawyer Francis Kadjilembaye condemned the verdict, calling it “a humiliation” based on assumptions and unsupported by evidence, accusing the authorities of weaponising the courts. Activists from Masra’s Transformers Party announced plans to issue a “special message” later the same day.
Police arrested Masra on May 16, two days after the massacre, charging him with inciting hatred and revolt, collaborating with armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson, and desecration of graves. He stood trial alongside nearly 70 other defendants accused of participating in the killings, which reportedly stemmed from disputes between Fulani nomadic herders and Ngambaye farmers over grazing and farming boundaries.
Masra, a southerner from the Ngambaye ethnic group, commands strong support among Chad’s predominantly Christian and animist populations, who feel marginalised by the Muslim-dominated government in N’Djamena. During the trial, his legal team argued that the prosecution failed to present concrete evidence.
The opposition figure went on a hunger strike for nearly a month in June. He had previously fled Chad after a deadly 2022 crackdown on his supporters, returning in 2024 under an amnesty agreement. Trained as an economist in France and Cameroon, he had long opposed the government before unexpectedly being appointed prime minister in January 2024. He served until May, after signing a reconciliation deal with Déby, then contested the presidential election, officially winning 18.5% of the vote to Déby’s 61.3%, though he claimed victory.
According to the International Crisis Group, conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers killed over 1,000 people and injured 2,000 in Chad between 2021 and 2024.