Senegal/Chad

Rights groups push for Hissene Habre's trial

Article published on the 2008-08-19 Latest update 2008-08-19 06:32 TU

Former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre
(File Photo: AFP)

Rights groups raised the alarm regarding the long-awaited trial of former Chadian President Hissene Habré after Senegal's Justice Minister Madicke Niang raised doubts Habré could not be tried twice for the same alleged offences. Habre was sentenced to death in absentia in Ndjamena last week for "attacking the security of the state", even though he is currently facing charges in Senegal, where he has lived in exile since 1991.

Rights groups maintain that Habre's Chad sentence should not have any bearing on the Senegal trial, as Dakar was ordered by the African Union two years ago to put the former president on trial.

"In Chad, he was convicted for threatening national sovereignty and for his alleged support of the rebels who tried to sieze power this February," Human Rights Watch lawyer Reed Brody told RFI.

"In Senegal, he's accused of things that happened 20 years ago, for crimes against humanity, torture, for thousands of political killings, and waves of ethnic cleansing," he added.

The rights groups contend that the victims of his alleged abuses have waited 18 years to get justice, and called on Senegal to rapidly bring him to trial.

This is an important case for Africa as a whole. Leaders on the continent have maintained that their judicial systems are strong enough to handle cases and not call for other internatinal judicial organs to try African cases.

But if Senegal decides to pass on the case, other countries, including Belgium would step up and hold the trial there, according to Senegal-based rights group Raddho, as vicitims have files cases in various courts outside of African jurisdiction.

After he was deposed in 1990 and eventually fled to Senegal, an official truth commision was set up, issuing an official report in 1992 accusing his government of committing some 40,000 political murders.