A Senegalese court found former dictator Hissène Habré of Chad guilty of torture, rape, war crimes, and crimes against humanity today, Monday 30th in a landmark verdict decades in the making against a U.S. Cold War-era ally.
Mr. Habré orchestrated the killing and torture of tens of thousands of political prisoners during his 1982-1990 rule over the impoverished desert country, presiding judge Gberdao Gustave Kam told the court.
Mr. Habré also committed rape, the judge added. The alleged victim sat in the audience and smiled as the judge sentenced the frail 73-year-old ex-head of state to life in prison.
“He created and maintained an environment of total impunity,” the Senegalese judge said, before reading the verdict. As he did, several of Mr. Habré’s alleged victims began whooping and dancing around the courtroom, which was specifically renovated for what is now the first completed war crimes trial of an African leader by another African government.
With his face obscured by a white turban, Mr. Habré, 73, sat passively through most of the hourslong proceedings, his eyes closed behind a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses. He has denied the charges.
His lawyers, who have the option to appeal within 15 days, have maintained that there is no proof linking Mr. Habré to the 40,000 deaths and 200,000 cases of torture a Chadian government investigation claims he organized directly.
The two-year-long trial makes Mr. Habré Africa’s latest high-profile leader to see jail time. Four years ago, a special court in The Hague gave a life sentence to Liberian dictator Charles Taylor for aiding and abetting war crimes.
On Tuesday, in Ivory Coast, a court will began trying that country’s former First Lady Simone Gbagbo, for crimes against humanity. Both Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Gbagbo have denied their charges.
“This verdict sends a powerful message that the days when tyrants could brutalize their people, pillage their treasury, and escape abroad to a life of luxury are coming to an end,” said Reed Brody, spokesman for Human Rights Watch, and a key lawyer in the decadeslong effort to try Mr. Habré.
For a quarter-century, Mr. Habré’s alleged victims have been lobbying governments in Africa and the West for justice against the dictator, who was once among America’s closest allies in the Sahara. After seizing power in 1982, the Paris-educated son of a shepherd declared war on Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, prompting the U.S. government to supply the Chadian autocrat with missiles, grenade launchers, rifles, and three C-130 cargo planes, according to a 1998 congressional report.
In particular, the Central Intelligence Agency trained Mr. Habré’s troops and helped buy the Toyota pickup trucks they used to defeat the Libyan strongman in a brief border skirmish called the Toyota War. Then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig described the effort as an attempt to “bloody Gadhafi’s nose.”
At home, Mr. Habré’s soldiers rounded up hundreds of thousands of political enemies or members of rival ethnic groups during his eight-year reign, according to Chad’s government investigation, published in 1992. On a near daily basis, a nephew brought Mr. Habré a folder listing the prisoners swept up by the country’s spy agency, the Documentation and Security Directorate, that report said.
In 1990, Mr. Habré fled a coup led by his own military adviser, Idris Deby, who 26 years later is still the deeply poor country’s president, and a close French ally.
Mr. Habré settled in Dakar, in a two-story villa near the beach, where neighbors said they could watch the former dictator tend pet goats, entertain guests, and watch nightly episodes of the sitcom Seinfeld. Two successive Senegalese governments refused to try or extradite him.
That changed in 2012, when voters elected Senegal’s current president, Macky Sall. A former prime minister, Mr. Sall swore to bring charges against the ex-dictator. Days after a 2013 visit by President Barack Obama, when the two leaders discussed the issue, Senegal’s government followed through.
Corrections & Amplifications:
The U.S. government supplied Mr. Habré three C-130 cargo planes, according to a 1998 congressional report. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated it was three 3-130s.
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