BBC News, 30
June 2013
Related
Stories
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| Former Chadian President Hissene Habre has lived in Senegal for more than two decades |
Mr Habre's
lawyer El Hadji Diouf said he was taken from his home in Dakar by paramilitary
police to an unknown location on Sunday.
The
70-year-old has been under house arrest since 2005 in Senegal, where he fled
after being deposed in 1990.
He denies
killing and torturing tens of thousands of his opponents.
Last year
the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Senegal to put him on
trial or extradite him to face justice overseas.
His arrest
comes days after US President Barack Obama praised the efforts of Senegal's
current President Macky Sall to bring him to trial at the start of his Africa
tour.
Historic
precedent
Human
rights group have been pushing Senegal to put Mr Habre on trial for decades.
Senegalese
MPs passed a law in December allowing a special African Union tribunal to be
created in the country to try the former leader, who has been dubbed
"Africa's Pinochet".
The charges
against him date from 1982, when Mr Habre came to power in a coup, until 1990,
the year he was ousted.
Mr Habre
was first indicted in Senegal in 2000 - but the country's courts ruled at the
time that he could not be tried there.
His alleged
victims then filed complaints under Belgium's universal jurisdiction law, which
allows the country's judges to prosecute human rights offences committed
anywhere in the world.
He was
charged by Belgium with crimes against humanity and torture in 2005, but
Senegal has refused four extradition requests.
Plans in
2011 to repatriate Mr Habre to Chad, where a court in 2008 sentenced him to
death in absentia for planning to overthrow the government, were stopped
following a plea from the UN.
A trial in
Senegal would set a historic precedent as until now African leaders accused of
atrocities have only been tried in international courts.
Who is Hissene Habre?
- Born in 1942 to ethnic Toubou herders in northern Chad
- Given scholarship to study political science in France
- First came to the world's attention in 1974 when his FAN rebels captured three European hostages to ransom for money and arms
- Seized power in 1982, allegedly with the help of the CIA; ousted by current President Idriss Deby in 1990
- Accused of systematically persecuting groups he distrusted
- A former swimming pool was used as an underground prison where survivors say they were subjected to electric shocks, near-asphyxia and "supplice des baguettes", when their heads were squeezed between sticks
- Profile: Chad's Hissene Habre
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