Chad ignored protests from human rights groups and...

Chad ignored protests from human rights groups and carried out the death penalty for the first time since 1991, executing eight people after vowing to crack down on unrest in the impoverished desert state.
"This will give a good lesson to wrongdoers, even if they are foreigners," Territorial Administration Minister Routouang Yoma Golom told AFP. Six Chadians and a Sudanese man were publicly executed by firing squad in the capital Ndjamena, while Golom said an eighth person was shot dead at the same time in the eastern town of Abeche.
Four of those executed in Ndjamena had been sentenced to death for the September 25, 2003 murder of Sudanese businessman and lawmaker Acheik Ibni Oumar Idriss Youssouf, while the other three had been convicted in other criminal cases.
The man executed in Abeche was convicted in 1998 of murdering a policeman and several members of his own family.
The seven were executed at an army shooting range in the presence of Golom, the justice minister and chief prosecutor, and Chadian journalists.
The Chadian League of Human Rights had previously denounced the imminent execution of the four for the murder of the Sudanese oilman.
The International Federation of Human Rights had also issued a statement urging the authorities to stay the executions and adopt a moratorium leading to the abolition of the death penalty.
Those executed for the murder of the Sudanese businessman had asked for a presidential pardon and for their sentences to be appealed, said appeal court president Paul Wadana, adding that their requests had been refused.