\n The number of Chadians killed under the brutal regime of ex-dictator Hissene Habre far exceeded the frequently-quoted estimate of 40,000, his trial in Senegal for atrocities heard on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 73-year-old, who fled to Dakar after being deposed in 1990, is being prosecuted in his adoptive country for war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture during eight years of repression.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mahamat Hassan Akabar, president of a commission into atrocities committed under Habre's regime, explained how investigators had arrived at the figure, adding that it was probably a vast underestimate.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Habre ruled for 2,920 days with, on average, 13 deaths (daily),\" Akabar told the African Extraordinary Chambers in Dakar, citing witness testimony and documents, saying this would make 37,960 deaths.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The commission rounded up to 40,000 to account for deaths in the provinces. We have not included summary executions that were happening every night,\" he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said the commission \"had neither the time nor the means\" to investigate every alleged killing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The conviction, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that this is a bare minimum figure. The investigations represent only 10 percent of what occurred,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Ninety-eight percent of the results of these investigations were obtained in N'Djamena and its surroundings,\" Akabar told the tribunal.\n<\/p>\n
\n Once dubbed \"Africa's Pinochet\", Habre has been in custody in Senegal since his arrest in June 2013 at the home he shared in a plush neighbourhood of Dakar with his wife and children.\n<\/p>\n
\n His trial heard last week how Chad's Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), described as \"the eyes and the ears of the president\", meted out a variety of abusive and often deadly punishments to detainees.\n<\/p>\n
\n Akabar said the bodies of those who died in Habre's notorious prisons were not handed over to their families.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Bodies were buried in sacks of rice and millet. Others were buried with their clothes,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Those who didn't live in Chad during this period struggle to understand what happened. Among all this disaster, the change people hoped for never came.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n During his impassioned evidence, Akabar appeared at times to lose his cool and was scolded by Burkinabe tribunal president Gberdao Gustave Kam to \"speak without hate, and remain measured\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Habre doesn't recognise the authority of the African Union-mandated court and has refused to cooperate with his trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The number of Chadians killed under the brutal regime of ex-dictator Hissene Habre far exceeded the frequently-quoted estimate of 40,000, his trial in Senegal for atrocities heard on Tuesday. The 73-year-old, who fled to Dakar after being deposed in 1990, is being prosecuted in his adoptive country for war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-2066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n