In what has been called \u201cAfrica\u2019s trial of the century\u201d, the former dictator of Chad has been found guilty in connection with\u00a0a reign of terror involving rape, torture and mass murder.<\/p>\n
Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 was once backed by America\u2019s Cold War-era CIA, but in\u00a0a landmark for African justice, a specially convened court has sentenced him to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, rape, sexual slavery and ordering killings.<\/p>\n
The trial, the first time an African Union-backed court has tried a former ruler for human rights abuses, heard that Habr\u00e9 had presided over a regime where opponents were tortured using electric shocks and waterboarding, and women were kept as \u201csexual slaves\u201d. \u00a0The ex-dictator has also become the first former head of state to be convicted of personally raping someone.<\/p>\n
One estimate suggested that under the direct control of Habr\u00e9, Chad\u2019s Directorate of Documentation and Security (DDS) killed at least 40,000 civilians \u2013 in a country of 7 million people \u2013 and tortured hundreds of thousands more.<\/p>\n
Habr\u00e9, 73, who had ruled Chad between 1982 and 1990, had protested his innocence and dismissed the legitimacy of the trial. But Judge Gberdao Gustave Kam delivered a guilty verdict\u00a0at the Extraordinary African Chambers convened in the neighbouring country of Senegal.<\/p>\n
Praising the victims of Habr\u00e9 who were instrumental in bringing the former dictator to justice, Reed Brody, legal counsel for Human Rights Watch, said: \u201cToday will be carved into history as the day that a band of unrelenting survivors brought their despot to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many years,\u201d he added, \u201cThe common refrain was that they would never succeed. \u00a0But they pressed forward. In a case which looked dead so many times, the victims made it clear that they would never go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 26-year campaign to bring Habr\u00e9 to justice had led to him being described as \u201cAfrica\u2019s Pinochet\u201d.<\/p>\n
While the arrest of the former Chilean dictator in London in 1998 had been a process led by the developed world in the form of a Spanish magistrate issuing an international arrest warrant, Habr\u00e9 was tried in Africa, with much of the campaign against him led by his African victims.<\/p>\n
On the eve of Habr\u00e9’s\u00a0trial in July last year, Mr Brody told\u00a0The Independent<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cThis is the case that shows it is possible for African victims to bring African dictators to justice in Africa. It doesn\u2019t show it will be easy. It doesn\u2019t show it will be quick. But it does show that dictators who commit atrocities will never be fully out of the reach of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Brody added that because of the Habr\u00e9 trial, he had been approached by the victims of other African dictators about the possibility of bringing them to trial.<\/p>\n The Habr\u00e9 case is also thought to have been the first in the world in which the courts of one country prosecute the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes.<\/p>\n The trial had begun with Habr\u00e9 having to be dragged into court by a policeman, kicking and screaming that the judges were \u201cvalets of America\u201d. \u00a0The accusation had a certain irony given that Habr\u00e9 had reportedly been propped up by the Reagan-era CIA, which viewed him as \u201cthe quintessential desert warrior\u201d\u00a0and a useful bulwark against Libya\u2019s Colonel Gaddafi.<\/p>\n When Habr\u00e9 eventually fell silent, he was forced to sit through weeks of testimony detailing what he had done to his own people.<\/p>\n The court heard how victims were tortured in an underground prison, suffering electric shocks, waterboarding and asphyxiation. Some said women were kept as sex slaves and others spoke of having spice rubbed into their genitals.<\/p>\n The trial also heard from members of forensic teams that had discovered mass graves, and a handwriting expert who identified Habr\u00e9\u2019s writing on police documents. \u00a0A former DDS agent claimed the director of police had visited Habr\u00e9 every day with documents for the dictator to sign.<\/p>\n