Chad Puts Former Aides to Ex-President Habre on Trial for Reign of Terror
Twenty nine aides to Chad's ousted dictator Hissene Habre went on trial Friday before a special court in N'djamena charged with mass murder and torture during his rule in the 1980s.
In the very first trial inside Chad arising from the "black years" between 1982 and 1990, when thousands of people were killed or grievously hurt, the top suspect was Saleh Younous, once head of the Directorate of Documentation and Security (DDS), which was Habre's political police.
"This is a historical trial which Chadians have been awaiting for a long time," the capital's chief prosecutor Bruno Louapambe Mahouli said at the opening of proceedings.
Habre himself has been charged with crimes against humanity and is being held in Dakar, capital of Senegal, where he sought refuge after being toppled in December 1990 by Idriss Deby Itno, who was elected president of the sub-Saharan nation the next year and has ruled ever since.
Prosecutor Mahouli told an audience including victims of Habre's rule that "the trial will be fair and just, to enable Chadians to understand that the judicial system is not a machine for repression."
However, no lawyers were present at the start of the trial, which was suspended, since the bar association is on strike to press the Chadian state to pay overdue fees and to improve working conditions.
The defendants, who for the most part are former DDS operatives, were brought to the courthouse in a paramilitary police truck under heavy escort, while security forces surrounded the premises.
Some N'Djamena residents remain so scarred by the reign of terror in the 1980s that they lower their voices whenever they walk past the buildings that once housed the DDS, though Deby's regime has scrapped the institution.
DDS files accessed by New York-based Human Rights Watch reveal the names of 1,208 people who were killed or died in detention, and 12,321 victims of human rights violations, according to HRW.
The defendants in the dock also include Mahamat Djibrine, presented by a national commission of inquiry as "one of the most feared torturers" during the years of terror.
As a whole, the accused face charges of murder, torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, assault and battery and barbaric acts. The trial is due to be completed on December 13.
Habre lived unperturbed in Senegal for more than 20 years despite mounting international pressure for a trial, but after much wavering by authorities in Dakar, police arrested him in 2013.
Already sentenced to death in his absence by a court in Chad for crimes against humanity, the former dictator today awaits trial by a special jurisdiction formed under agreement between Senegal and the African Union.
In 2000, dozens of victims from the "black years" filed a suit in N'Djamena against about 50 members of Habre's regime, but the judiciary did little until last year, when several alleged torturers were arrested and charged.
"The survivors, widows and orphans of Habre's government have been campaigning for 24 years to see Habre and his accomplices face trial," HRW counsel Reed Brody said in a statement this week.
"The trial of Habre's alleged henchmen could be a major event in Chad's history, but a tainted process would be an insult to the victims," added Brody, who has worked with survivors of the atrocities for some 15 years.
Jacqueline Moudeina, the leading lawyer for the victims and head of a Chadian rights association, said that a trial meeting international standards could help people "to recover the dignity they have sought for 24 years".
Source: Agence France Presse
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