Arusha, December 20, 2012 (FH) \u2013 The Senegalese National Assembly Wednesday passed a law that will allow creation of a special African Union tribunal to try Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9. The former Chadian dictator is accused of crimes against humanity and torture during his eight years in power (1982-90).<\/p>\n
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The law provides for special chambers to be created within the existing Senegalese court structure. This is in line with an agreement reached between Dakar and the African Union in August.<\/p>\n
The move is welcomed by human rights groups. \u2018\u2018The opening of the case against Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 has never seemed so close,\u201d legal counsel for Human Rights Watch, Reed Brody, said in a statement. \u201cIn eight months Macky Sall\u2019s government has accomplished more to reward the perseverance and tenacity of Habr\u00e9\u2019s victims than Senegal had over the course of two decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Habr\u00e9 has been living in Senegal for 22 years, no proceedings against him were ever started under the previous president Abdoulaye Wade. He was charged in Belgium in 2005 with crimes against humanity and torture, but Senegal refused extradition requests. \u00a0 The International Court of Justice ruled on July 21 that Senegal had breached its international obligations by failing to make immediately a preliminary inquiry into the facts relating to the crimes allegedly committed by Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9. It said Senegal must \u201cwithout further delay, submit the case of Mr. Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution, if it does not extradite him\u201d.<\/p>\n
President Sall, who was elected in April, promised to start proceedings against Habre before the end of the year.\u00a0The BBC quotes an aide at the Senegalese justice ministry as saying the AU would now start appointing judges put forward by the justice ministry. The tribunal\u2019s president would be from elsewhere in Africa and investigations into the case would last 15 months, after which a decision would be made whether to charge Habr\u00e9, the justice ministry official is further quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
FK\/JC\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, December 20, 2012 (FH) \u2013 The Senegalese National Assembly Wednesday passed a law that will allow creation of a special African Union tribunal to try Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9. The former Chadian dictator is accused of crimes against humanity and torture during his eight years in power (1982-90).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-24694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n