(19 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris – 19 September 2025
1. Wide of press conference
2. SOUNDBITE (French) Charles-Stéphane Marchiani, lawyer representing the family of Yaya Dillo, Chad opposition leader killed in February 2024:
"On September 20, 2024, Mr. Robert Gam was arrested, manu militari, at his home and he disappeared until June 4, 2025, for almost nine months. During this nine-month period, he was clearly detained in the premises of the Chadian security services, and he was tortured."
3. Mid of press conference with poster in the background of killed opposition leader Yaya Dillo
4. SOUNDBITE (French) Robert Gam, Chad opposition leader, secretary general of Socialist Party Without Borders:
“Today, it has been exactly 19 months, one year and seven months, that the military regime in power has been trying to justify the unjustifiable and refusing to open an investigation despite the PSF and the biological family having referred the matter to the courts, fueling speculation about the true circumstances of this political and extrajudicial tragedy."
5. Poster of Yaya Dillo
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Robert Gam, Chad opposition leader, secretary general of Socialist Party Without Borders:
"The military authorities’ refusal to open a genuine investigation under the auspices of the United Nations contributes to fueling the feeling of impunity and lawlessness, seriously threatening the fragile stability of the country."
7. Wide of press conference
STORYLINE:
A Chadian opposition leader on Friday accused his country’s government of targeting opposition figures in a crackdown, and alleged that he was mistreated during eight months he was in custody in Chad.
Robert Gam, who heads Chad’s Socialist Party Without Borders, was released from custody in June.
He told reporters in Paris, where he is now receiving medical care, that Chadian authorities never told him why he was arrested.
Gam’s arrest followed a security raid on the PSF party headquarters in February last year.
The party said Yaya Dillo, its leader, was killed during the raid. However, authorities said Dillo was among several people who were killed when they attacked Chad’s national security agency.
The Associated Press could not independently verify either account at the time. Chad’s government did not immediately respond to the claims made by Gam.
Gam described a harrowing experience during his time in custody and said he would sue his captors from France.
“Each night masked men came … and took people away," he said. "You never knew if it was for release — or for execution."
Chadian authorities have arrested and detained several prominent figures in what activists say is a crackdown on human rights and dissent.
Success Masra, former prime minister and opposition leader, was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison, convicted of incitement to violence and complicity to murder.
The alleged crackdown, observers say, reflects the leadership style of the 41-year-old President Mahamat Deby, who came to power following the death of his father and Chad’s longtime president, Idriss Deby.
The long-delayed May 6 election came after three years of military rule with Mahmat Deby as the interim president.
The country is seen by the United States and France as one of the last remaining stable allies in western Africa following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in recent years.
The ruling juntas in all three nations have expelled French and American forces and turned to Russia for security assistance instead.
AP video shot by Oleg Celtnic
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