Court postpones decision on Hissene Habre trial

A Senegalese court said on Monday it would decide on 15 June whether or not to have former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre face trial on torture charges, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported.

“We’re glad that the court is going to take the time to carefully study the law, because under the law Senegal is obliged to bring Habre to justice,” said Reed Brody, advocacy director of HRW.

The New York-based organisation is one of a coalition of international, Chadian, Senegalese and other rights groups that filed the case on behalf of victims of Habre’s rule.

Habre’s attorneys, lawyers for the victims and the state prosecutor presented arguments behind closed doors to Dakar’s three-judge Indicting Chamber on Habre’s request to have the case dismissed, HRW said.

The victims’ lawyers noted that the “no safe haven” provision of the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, which Senegal ratified in 1986, expressly obliges states to either prosecute or extradite alleged torturers who enter their territory.

Under the Senegalese constitution, international treaties, once ratified, override the country’s legal code. Habre’s lawyers argued that Senegal has no jurisdiction over crimes committed in Chad and that the prosecution is barred by the statute of limitations.

But attorneys for the victims said under Senegalese law, the 10-year statute of limitations for serious crimes only began when prosecution became possible, i.e. after Habre lost power in December 1990.

The prosecution initiated the case against Habre in January 2000. In February, Judge Demba Kandji of the Dakar Regional Court indicted him on torture charges and placed him under house arrest.

Chad’s Truth Commission, which spent 15 months probing Habre’s alleged crimes, told Kandji that his forces killed an estimated 40,000 Chadians.

Habre, 57, seized power in 1982, overthrowing the government of Goukouni Wedeye. HRW said his one-party regime was “marked by widespread abuse and campaigns against the ethnic Hadjerai (1987) and the Zaghawa (1989)”. Habre has lived in Senegal since his ouster.