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Court cannot try Chad's Habre
21/03/2001 12:23 - (SA)
Diadie Ba
Dakar - Senegal's highest court said on Tuesday it could not try Chad's former ruler Hissene Habre for torture as the alleged crimes were committed outside Senegal, but his victims vowed to pursue him in courts elsewhere.
Senegal's Appeal Court ruling dealt a serious blow to efforts to bring Pinochet-style proceedings against Habre for abuses committed during his 1982-90 rule.
Habre, 58, has lived in exile in Senegal since he was deposed in 1990 in a French-backed coup.
"After so much suffering and then so much hope, I feel betrayed by Senegalese justice," said Ismael Hachim, who was tortured during two years spent incarcerated in Habre's Chad.
Hachim leads the Association of Chadian Victims of Political Repression and Crime (AVCRP), which brought the court action.
He says he was tortured while in jail by having all four limbs tied behind his back, causing loss of blood circulation and paralysis.
"Facts are stubborn things and the evidence of Habre's crimes is finally being presented to the world. Hissene Habre has not seen the last of his victims," Hachim added in a statement issued via US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Habre's is seen as a test case. If the Senegal court had agreed to try him, he would have become the first African ruler to face trial in a foreign country for abuses committed at home.
"If Senegal will not put Habre on trial for his atrocities, we will ask it to hand him over to a country that will," said HRW's advocacy director Reed Brody, who helped bring the action.
Trial in a Thirds Country
Brody said it was still possible that Habre could be tried in Senegal for crimes against humanity committed in Chad in relation to a probe started by a magistrate in Chad last February.
But he said victims who brought the case were exploring avenues for Habre's extradition for trial in a third country.
Human rights lawyers argued that Senegal's legal code, which gave judges no jurisdiction over crimes committed abroad, should have been overridden by the 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture, which Senegal ratified in 1986.
Habre's lawyer Madicke Niang welcomed Tuesday's decision.
"As far as I am concerned, the law has been upheld and I am happy about that," he told Reuters.
Seven Chadian individuals brought the case against Habre before Senegal? courts, along with Hachim's AVCRP which represents 792 alleged victims of torture under Habre's rule.
A commission set up by Habre's successor in 1991 accused his administration of 40 000 political murders and 200 000 cases of torture. It also accused Habre of embezzling state funds on a huge scale from the impoverished country.
The victims bringing the case said they were inspired by the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who has been the subject of legal attempts abroad to try him for human rights crimes committed during his rule. Pinochet, now back in Chile, has been bailed pending a possible trial.
- Reuters
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