(Dakar, Senegal – February 3, 2000) -- A Senegalese court today indicted
the exiled dictator of Chad, Hissein Habre, on torture charges, and
placed him under house arrest.
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"This is a stunning victory for the Chadian people and for torture
victims all over the world. Today's indictment is a wake-up call to dictators in
Africa and elsewhere, that if they commit similar atrocities they could
also be brought to justice one day."
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Reed Brody
Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch
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Judge Demba Kandji of the Dakar Regional Court took the action after
hearing the testimony of six of Habre's victims and receiving
information regarding hundreds of other crimes. While the judge will
continue his investigation into the case, today's move opens the way for
Habre's trial, possibly later this year.
It is the first time that a former African head of state has been
indicted for atrocities by the courts of another country. Habre has
lived in exile in Senegal since his ouster in 1990.
"This is a stunning victory for the Chadian people and for torture
victims all over the world," said Reed Brody, Advocacy Director of Human
Rights Watch, one of the organizations which initiated the criminal
action last week. "Today's indictment is a wake-up call to dictators in
Africa and elsewhere, that if they commit similar atrocities they could
also be brought to justice one day."
In papers presented to Judge Kandji, Human Rights Watch and the other
groups provided details of 97 political killings, 142 cases of torture,
100 "disappearances," and 736 arbitrary arrests, most carried out by
Habre's dreaded DDS (Documentation and Security Directorate). The
groups also furnished documents describing how Habre placed the DDS
under his direct supervision, staffed it with his close friends, and
required that it report regularly to him.
Seven individual Chadians and one Frenchwoman whose Chadian husband was
killed by Habre's regime are acting as private plaintiffs, as is the
Chadian Association of Victims of Political Repression and Crime
(AVCRP), which represents 792 victims of Habre's brutality.
The Chadian plaintiffs were jubilant at today's decision "Our pleas
have been answered," said Samuel Togoto, 53, who was beaten in prison
while his hands and feet were tightly bound together behind his back, a
common torture known as the "Arbatachar.""This is one of the happiest
days of my life."
Younous Mahadjir, 47, Vice-President of the Chadian Labor Confederation,
who was also subjected to the "Arbatachar,"said that the judge's ruling
was a "triumph for those who are no longer with us. Today, my friends
who were tortured, the people I saw die in jail, have finally achieved
some justice."
Habre, who appeared before Judge Kandji this afternoon to hear his
indictment, remains in his villa on the outskirts of Dakar, which is
now guarded by Senegalese gendarmes.
Habre, 57, took power in Chad in 1982, overthrowing the government of
Goukouni Wedeye. Habre's one-party regime, supported by the United
States and France, was marked by widespread abuse and campaigns against
the ethnic Hadjerai (1987) and the Zaghawa (1989). Habre was deposed in
December 1990 by current president Idriss Deby, who had been his army
chief of staff.
A 1992 truth commission accused Habre's regime of 40,000 political
murders and 200,000 cases of torture and of stealing $11.6 million from
the Chadian treasury. With many ranking officials
of the Deby government, including Deby himself, involved in Habre's
crimes, however, the new government did not pursue Habre's extradition.
"Senegal can hold its head up high today," said Alioune Tine of the
Dakar-based African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights
(RADDHO)."My country is setting an example for Africa by showing that
Africans can take care of their own problems. The time when brutal
despots could just take their bank accounts and move next door is coming
to an end."
Among those who also testified before Judge Kandji were Sabadet Totodet,
a former prisoner who was ordered by the DDS to dig mass graves to bury
Habre's opponents, and Ramadane Souleymane, whose brother, a regional
lieutenant governor, was arrested and "disappeared" in Habre's campaign
against the Hadjerai.
The effort to prosecute Habre was inspired by the case against Gen.
Augusto Pinochet, said Brody of Human Rights Watch, which participated
in the Pinochet hearings before the British House of Lords. Human
Rights Watch sent investigators to Chad to prepare the documentation and
witness testimony which was presented to the Dakar court.
"The Pinochet case reaffirmed the principles of international law that a
country can judge the crime of torture no matter where the acts were
committed, and that not even a former head of state has immunity from
prosecution," said Brody. "But it also showed us that there are
countries where these lofty principles can actually be applied in
practice. Senegal can now be counted among those countries."
Joining Human Rights Watch and RADDHO in support of the complaint were
the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights
(ATPDH), the Chadian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the National
Organization for Human Rights (Senegal), the London-based Interights,
the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the
French organization Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme.
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For Further Information, Contact:
New York - Reed Brody, 1-212-216-1206 [English, French, Spanish]
Dakar, Senegal - Alioune Tine (RADDHO), 221-633-0994 [French, English]
Brussels - Jean-Paul Marthoz, 322-732-2009 [French, English, Spanish]
London - Ibrahima Kane (Interights), 44 -171 278 32 30 [French,
English]
N'Djamena, Chad - Dobian Assingar (LTDH), 235- 53 4473 [French]
- Delphine Djiraibe (ATPDH), 235- 51 5358 [French]
Photographs of Hissein Habre are available:
(in the United States) Frederic Guarino (fredericg@corbis.com) - Corbis
Sygma New York
Tel 1 212 675 7900; Fax 1 212 675 2433
(in France) Dominique Martel (dmartel@sygma.fr) - Corbis Sygma Paris
Tel 33 1 47 27 70 30; Fax 33 1 47 27 23 59
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