Chad executes 10 Boko Haram members by firing squad

Chad has executed 10 members of the Boko Haram militant group by firing squad, in the country’s first use of the death penalty since it amended its anti-terrorist laws last month.

The 10 were sentenced to death on Friday after a court found them guilty of charges including criminal conspiracy, murder, wilful destruction with explosives, fraud, illegal possessions of arms and ammunition, and using psychotropic substances, according to chief prosecutor Bruno Mahouli Louapambe, quoted in AFP news agency. They were killed at around 11 am on Saturday on a firing range north of the capital N'Djamena.

The people killed include Bahna Fanaye, alias Mahamat Moustapha, whom Chadian officials have described as a leader of the Nigeria-based group.

Chad has played a lead role in helping Nigeria retake most of the areas Boko Haram had seized in the north-east of the country, close to its border with Chad. It has also promised to take a lead role in a regional force to fight Boko Haram that is expected to include soldiers from Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin and Niger.

The jihadists, who want to create an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria, have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more since 2009. They have also regularly attacked Nigeria’s neighbours, including Chad, this year. N’Djamena was rocked by a series of suicide attacks that killed dozens of people in June and July.

In one attack, suicide bombers on motorcycles attacked two buildings in the capital. In another, a man disguised as a woman wearing a burqa detonated a bomb outside the city’s main market – an incident that led to Chad’s banning of the burqa.

Last September, Chad proposed a draft penal code that abolished capital punishment. Back then, the International Federation for Human Rights praised Chad for having observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 1991, with the exception of nine executions in November 2003. However, in an attempt to crack down on terrorism, new legislation introduced last month brought back the death penalty.