Chad's state prosecutors requested Friday a 25-year jail sentence for opposition leader Succès Masra, who is on trial accused of inciting a massacre.
"Since a life sentence is ruled out, we demand 25 years in prison for Masra and his co-defendants," chief prosecutor Louapambe Mahouli Bruno told the court.
A former prime minister of the country and one of the fiercest opponents of its President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, Masra is accused of inciting the killing of 42 people on 14 May.
The massacre reportedly killed mostly women and children in Mandakao, southwestern Chad, according to the courts.
Arrested on 16 May, Masra is charged with "inciting hatred, revolt, forming and complicity with armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson and desecration of graves".
Alongside him, nearly 70 other men stand accused of taking part in the killings.
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Masra, originally from Chad's south, comes from the Ngambaye ethnic group and enjoys wide popularity among the predominantly Christian and animist populations of the south.
Those groups feel marginalised by the largely Muslim regime in the capital N'Djamena.
Masra's lawyers said Tuesday that no concrete evidence against him had been presented to the court.
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He went on hunger strike in jail for nearly a month in June, his lawyers said at the time.
He had left Chad after a bloody crackdown on his followers in 2022 and returned under an amnesty agreed in 2024.
(AFP)
