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N’Djamena – Seven sons of Chadian officials have been sentenced to 10 years in jail each, for gang raping a schoolgirl in the capital N’Djamena, a case which provoked angry protests, judicial sources said on Friday.
Six of the eight attackers of young Zouhoura, daughter of an opposition leader, were handed sentences of ten years hard labour in prison.
The suspected leader of the gang, who has been on the run since June 13, received the same penalty in absentia.
The eighth accused received a one-year prison term.
Sixteen-year-old Zouhoura was kidnapped on the road to her school in early February by five boys riding in a car with tinted windows.
“They took me and brought me to an unknown location, There they began to undress me and to take photos,” she told AFP later in France, after deciding to break her silence despite the taboo about rape in her country.
A video which circulated of the young girl in tears provoked a wave of protests in Chad in the weeks ahead of the re-election in April of President Idriss Deby, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1999.
Her attackers included the sons of three generals.
Hundreds of young Chadians took to the streets in N’Djamena calling for justice for the young girl.
The quelling of one protest left a 17-year-old dead.
President Deby, now serving his fifth mandate, denounced the “unspeakable act”, promising that “justice will be done and that it will never be repeated”. – AFP
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