Chad's former leader accused of tortures, 40,000 political killings
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) — Senegal should either prosecute Chad's former ruler Hissene Habre or extradite him to face charges in Belgium for human-rights abuses allegedly committed by his regime, a U.N. anti-torture committee said Friday.
The U.N. Committee Against Torture panel said that
Senegal cannot use the complexity of its legal system, or other reasons related to its national laws, to justify not prosecuting or extraditing Habre.
Belgium has issued an international arrest warrant for Habre under its "universal jurisdiction" laws, which allow for prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they were committed. But a Senegalese court said last year it wasn't competent to rule on the extradition demand."The committee requested
Senegal to provide information on measures it was taking to address the situation and fulfill its obligations within 90 days," said a summary of the 16-page decision.Habre, who was jailed for days pending a court decision but later released, has lived in exile with his family in
Dakar since he was ousted by rebels in his homeland in 1990.A commission set up in
Chad in 1992 accused Habre's regime of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture. In 2001,
Senegal's high court dismissed war crimes charges against Habre, ruling it had no jurisdiction."It's a very important decision because it puts the law back into a case that was becoming a political soap opera," Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, who represents the victims before the U.N. panel, told The Associated Press. "This ruling means that
Senegal cannot allow Hissene Habre to escape justice."
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