Addis Ababa, November 20, 2014 (FH) \u2013 A man who survived the jails of former Chadian president Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 says he had to eat directly with his mouth \u201clike an animal\u201d during his four months of detention, because his hands were tied behind his back.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Younous Mahadjir, 62, is now vice-president of the Chad Federation of Trade Unions (UST). He was speaking on Thursday at a conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day in 1990 I was arrested and taken to the premises of the DDS (Directorate of Documentation and Security, Habr\u00e9\u2019s political police),\u201d he told the conference. \u201cI was tortured and bound, I could not eat with my hands, so I had to do it directly with my mouth like an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former president Habr\u00e9 is currently detained by the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal for crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture. The EAC is a special tribunal set up within the Senegalese justice system to try those most responsible for serious violations of international law committed in Chad under Habr\u00e9\u2019s regime (1992-1990).<\/p>\n
Mahadjir was speaking at a conference on transitional justice organized by Fondation Hirondelle (Swiss NGO) and the universities of Addis Ababa, Oxford, Harvard and Leipzig, with support from the Swiss Embassy in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
These institutions announced during the conference a partnership to launch a new global platform on transitional justice, JusticeInfo.Net, at the beginning of next year.<\/p>\n
The Chadian survivor said that in the cells of the DDS, victims received electric shocks to their genitals in the case of men and breasts in the case of women, to get them to make confessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met prisoners who were at the end of their tether. (\u2026) I did not see a single nurse in 4 months,\u201d said Mahadjir, who has filed a complaint as a civil party in the Habr\u00e9 case.\u00a0 He claimed DDS officials deliberately starved the prisoners or fed them with \u201crotten rice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost 45 kilos during my detention. (\u2026) Every day corpses were removed from the cells.\u201d Calling for justice to be done, he said the main thing that victims want is to see Habr\u00e9 tried, and that the question of compensation would follow.<\/p>\n
Nor did he spare Habr\u00e9\u2019s successor, current president Idriss D\u00e9by, whom he accused of not keeping his promises of \u201cliberty and democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
With regard to the trial in Chad of 26 suspects, including two sought by the EAC, he said this move by N'Djamena would be only a \u201cfarce of a trial to judge these torturers superficially and give them light prison sentences\u201d.<\/p>\n
For him, Habr\u00e9\u2019s suspected accomplices would certainly make revelations implicating D\u00e9by if they were tried in Dakar. Finally, he urged that the current Chadian Head of State be heard in the trial of his predecessor.<\/p>\n
ER\/JC<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Addis Ababa, November 20, 2014 (FH) \u2013 A man who survived the jails of former Chadian president Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 says he had to eat directly with his mouth \u201clike an animal\u201d during his four months of detention, because his hands were tied behind his back.<\/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-24937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n