Trial of Former Chadian President Hissene Habre

Habre declared at Monday’s court hearing, claiming he was the victim of “neocolonialism”.

“It shows that you can actually achieve justice here in Africa”, said HRW counsel Reed Brody, who has been working on the case against Habre since 1999.

The trial of former Chad dictator Hissène Habré gets under way on Monday.

The trial in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, marks the first time one African country has prosecuted the former leader of another.

The United Nations human rights chief praised the unprecedented agreement as “a historic example of regional leadership and willingness to fight against impunity for worldwide crimes”.

The AU had mandated Senegal to try Habre in July 2006, but the country stalled the process for years under former president Abdoulaye Wade, who was defeated in 2012 elections.

Habre, armed by Washington as its proxy in a war against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, is blamed by rights groups for widespread torture and the killing of up to 40,000 political opponents and ethnic rivals.

Tribunal head Gberdao Gustave Kam read the statement, adjourned proceedings until Tuesday and said Habre would be made to attend.

The former president, for his part, has condemned the trial as politically motivated.

Chadian lawyer Jacqueline Moudeina told a news conference in Dakar in June the trial would be “a turning point for justice in Africa and will sound an alarm for all the dictators whose crimes will one day catch up with them”.

Mr Habre will be judged by the Extraordinary African Chambers, set up by Senegal and the African Union in February 2013 to prosecute the “person or persons” most responsible for global crimes committed in Chad during Habre’s rule. The trial is costing $10 million, and the court is scheduled to hear from 100 witnesses over three months.

The 9 million euro ($10 million) trial will be filmed and released offline, according to Fall, while a selection of sessions will be shown by the Senegalese state broadcaster RTS.

If found guilty the sentences range from 30 years to life in prison with hard labor.

He said he had been “kidnapped” and “illegally detained” and therefore had no case to answer.

Habre was first indicted by a Senegalese judge in 2000, according to Human Rights Watch, but twists and turns over a decade brought the case to Belgium, and then finally back to Senegal, where Habre fled after being overthrown in 1990. I suffered for what reason?