Former dictator Habré to be sent back to Chad

Senegal is to send former Chadian dictator Hissene Habré back to his home country after two decades in exile where he faces the death sentence. Human rights groups have warned Habré, dubbed Africa’s Pinochet, will not get a fair trial in Chad. 

AFP

“Habré’s victims have been fighting for 20 years to bring him to justice but it’s vital he gets a fair trial,” said Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch. “We would hope that the government would be willing to send him to Belgium where he could get a fair trial.”

A Chadian court in 2008 sentenced Habré to death for crimes against humanity. A 1992 truth commission report in Chad said that during his time in power he had presided over up to 40,000 political murders and widepread torture.

He fled to Senegal after being toppled in 1990 by current Chadian President General Idriss Deby Itno.

Amid growing pressure to prosecute him, Senegal recently appealed to the African Union to take him off their hands.

African heads of state meeting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, at the beginning of the month adopted a resolution urging Senegal to either prosecute Habré or extradite him.

Habré was first indicted in Senegal for mass murder and torture in 2000, but Senegal said it had no jurisdiction to try the case. He was later charged by Belgium with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture.

Senegal rejected a Belgian extradition request and in 2006 the African Union mandated the country to put him on trial, at which point the country changed its penal code to include crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

However Senegal's insistence on full international funding for the proceedings in advance held up the case for years.