Chad's former dictator Hissene Habre faces a trial before the African Court of Justice beginning July 20 in Senegal, where he fled to after his downfall in 1990.
Once dubbed "Africa's Pinochet," the 72-year-old has been in custody in Senegal since his arrest in June 2013 at the home he shared with his wife and children.
Habre will be tried by the Senegalese courts' Extraordinary African Chambers. This will be the first trial in Africa of a universal jurisdiction case, in which a country's national courts can prosecute the most serious crimes committed abroad, by a foreigner and against foreign victims, said Human Rights Watch. It is also the first time the courts of one country are prosecuting the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes, it said.
"It shows that you can actually achieve justice here in Africa," said Human Rights Watch counsel Reed Brody, who has been working on the case against Habre since 1999, according to Daily Nation. "The Hissene Habre trial shows that it is possible for victims, with perseverance and resolve, to bring a dictator to court. This is a wake-up call to tyrants that if they engage in atrocities they will never be out of the reach of their victims."
Habre's government was responsible for an estimated 40,000 deaths, according to report published in May 1992 by a 10-member Chadian truth commission formed by Chad's current President Idriss Deby. The commission blamed Habre's Directorate of Documentation and Security, saying it used torture methods including whipping, beating, burning and the extraction of fingernails, according to Fox News.
Habre refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the court and has decided not to cooperate with the hearings, one of his lawyers, Ibrahima Diawara, told Agence France Presse on Thursday.
"Appearing in a trial is a right, not an obligation," Diawara said.
