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Senegal told to prosecute Habre
29/06/2006 08:40 - (SA)
Banjul - The African Union must press Senegal to prosecute or extradite former Chad president Hissene Habre to face charges of mass murder and torture, said a coalition of human rights groups.
A Chadian official inquiry had accused Habre's government of 40 000 political killings and 200 000 cases of torture during his 1982-1990 rule. He denied all knowledge of abuse and now lived in exile in Senegal.
Few former African strongmen had faced charges for past wrongs and many lived comfortable lives in exile, but activists said the extradition of Habre would reflect a stiffening resolve on the continent to seek justice over impunity.
Habre tops AU's agenda
The AU was expected to consider whether to try Habre in Africa or extradite him to Belgium in a summit in Banjul, Gambia, this week after Senegal said last month that the 53-member body should deal with the issue.
The Coalition Against Impunity, a group of 300 African and international civil society bodies, said that the AU must force Senegal to abide by its international obligations and ensure Habre faced justice.
Kolawole Olaniyan, director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme, which was part of the Campaign Against Impunity, said: "Habre's victims have been fighting for 16 years to see justice done.
"It is time for Habre to face trial for his alleged crimes." The pan-African organisation set up a panel of African jurists last year to decide what recommendation to make to the AU heads of state when they meet in Gambia on July 1-2.
Asphyxiation
Ismail Hachim Abdallah, president of an association of victims of political repression in Chad, was imprisoned for two years under Habre's rule.
Backing calls for the former president's extradition, he described how he was locked in a tiny cell and left to watch those around him die of asphyxiation.
He said: "It is a way of exterminating prisoners. Some of them were taken away to be executed, some were asphyxiated."
Habre's extradition would follow the transfer of Liberia's former warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor last week for trial at The Hague on war crime charges stemming from his role in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war.
Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch, said: "Habre's trial would be a milestone in the fight to hold the perpetrators of crimes under international law, such as torture, criminally responsible for their crimes."
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