Key ally of ousted Madagascar president sentenced over crackdown on Gen Z protestors

Madagascar's former Senate President Richard Ravalomanana. [Madagascar, Senate]

A Madagascar court on Tuesday sentenced a former top security official to 10 years of hard labour for a crackdown on protests last year, local media reported.

The official, gendarmerie general Richard Ravalomanana, was a key figure under now-ousted president Andry Rajoelina, who fled Madagascar amid the protests that rocked the country in September and October 2025.

The United Nations said at least 22 people were killed in the first days of the protests, some by security forces and others in violence sparked by criminal gangs and looters.

"The charges upheld against my client are complicity in murder and complicity in intentional assault and battery," Ravalomanana's lawyer Lazatiana Razafimamonjy told reporters outside court in Madagascar's capital.

He said they intend to appeal the conviction.

The protests, which were led mostly by young demonstrators, erupted over chronic power and water cuts in the impoverished Indian Ocean country, but developed into a broader anti-government movement calling for Rajoelina to resign.

Some of the victims were protesters or bystanders killed by the police or other security forces, according to the office of UN rights chief Volker Turk, who previously said he was "shocked and saddened" by the deaths.

Others were killed in widespread violence sparked by criminal gangs and looters in the wake of the demonstrations, the office said, insisting that those groups were separate from the protesters.

Ravalomanana had been held in pre-trial detention since January 18.

Army Colonel Michael Randrianirina, who has led the country since October 2025, came to power after Rajoelina fled.

A transition roadmap has promised a new constitution and a presidential election by the end of 2027.