N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chad’s former prime minister and opposition leader Succès Masra will remain in prison after the country’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal against a 20-year jail sentence, one of his lawyers said.
The ruling, delivered on Thursday, upholds Masra’s conviction for inciting violence and complicity to murder over deadly clashes in Logone Occidental province in May 2025. The decision is a major blow to the opposition figure, who has repeatedly denied the charges and described the case as politically motivated.
Masra, leader of the opposition party Les Transformateurs, was arrested in May 2025 and later tried alongside dozens of co-defendants, many from the Ngambaye ethnic group. Prosecutors accused him of helping incite violence linked to clashes between farmers and herders that left at least 35 people dead and several others injured.
In August 2025, a criminal court sentenced him to 20 years in prison and imposed a fine of one billion CFA francs. Human Rights Watch and other rights advocates criticised the trial as politically motivated, arguing that the case formed part of a wider crackdown on critics of President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.
Masra served briefly as prime minister in 2024 after returning from exile under a political agreement with the authorities. He later ran against Déby in the presidential election and rejected the official results, which confirmed Déby’s victory. Since then, relations between the government and the opposition have deteriorated sharply.
His supporters say the conviction was intended to remove one of Chad’s most prominent opposition voices from the political scene. Government officials have rejected accusations of political persecution, insisting that the case was handled by the courts and related to serious criminal allegations.
The Supreme Court’s rejection of the appeal effectively leaves Masra with limited legal options inside Chad. His lawyers are expected to continue denouncing the verdict, while opposition groups are likely to use the ruling as further evidence of shrinking political space in the country.
The decision comes amid wider concerns over repression in Chad. Earlier this month, a court in N’Djamena sentenced eight opposition leaders to eight years in prison in a separate insurrection case, a ruling also criticised by defence lawyers as politically driven.
For Chad’s opposition, Masra’s continued imprisonment represents another serious setback. For Déby’s government, it is likely to deepen scrutiny over judicial independence, political freedoms and the country’s troubled democratic transition.
