Senegal court declines to rule on Habre extradition

By Diadie Ba

DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal’s Appeals Court on Friday
declined to rule on whether to extradite former Chad President
Hissene Habre to Belgium on atrocities charges, and his lawyers
said he would be freed from custody.

The court in Dakar declared itself “not competent” to rule
on the Belgian request for Habre’s extradition to face charges
of torture and political killings committed during his eight
years in power in Chad.

The announcement threw the high-profile extradition case
into what appeared to be a legal limbo. Senegalese President
Abdoulaye Wade was considering making a statement on the case
in the next few days, sources at the presidency said.

Lawyers for Habre, 63, who has lived in exile in Senegal
for 15 years and was detained last week under an international
warrant from Belgium, said Habre would be freed from custody.

“He’s packing his bags to go home,” lawyer Doudou Ndoye
told Reuters. There was no immediate confirmation from
Senegalese authorities.

As he was driven away from the court in a police vehicle,
Habre, wearing a white robe and cap, waved to supporters, some
of whom shouted “We’ve won.”

Habre’s lawyers called the Senegalese court’s statement a
setback for the Belgian request which holds the former Chad
ruler responsible for mass murder and torture carried out by
his political police between 1982 and 1990.

But lawyers representing former Chad political prisoners
accusing Habre, some of whom have Belgian citizenship, said
they believed the ruling had not closed the door on
extradition.

His case has stirred up a complex international debate over
whether former heads of state wanted for human rights crimes
should be judged in the courts of nations other then their own.

“The court … declares itself not competent in the case of
the extradition of Hissene Habre,” the Appeals Court said.

“The (former) head of state Hissene Habre has done nothing
which merits him being judged in another country. Senegal has
just shown that no African head of state will be prosecuted in
Belgium,” Habre’s lawyer Ndoye said.

His lawyers have said their client had no knowledge that
his police tortured and killed political prisoners.

But lawyers representing the victims said the appeals court
had not definitively thrown out the extradition request.

“DOOR STILL OPEN”

“We’re looking at the ruling and, contrary to what you
might expect, the door is still open,” Belgian lawyer
Georges-Henri Beauthier told Reuters in Brussels.

Lawyers said they believed Senegalese President Wade might
take the final decision on the extradition.

The case poses a prickly diplomatic dilemma for Wade. He
said last week he would consult the African Union on whether or
not to hand over the former Chadian president, dubbed “Africa’s
Pinochet” by human rights lawyers.

Habre was ousted by current Chadian President Idriss Deby
in 1990. Two years later, a Chadian government inquiry accused
Habre’s government of 40,000 political killings and 200,000
cases of torture.

In a visit to Brussels on Thursday, Deby urged Wade to
extradite Habre to Belgium, saying the Senegalese leader had
previously said he would do so if requested.

Diplomats said Wade may be reluctant to set the precedent
of extraditing an African former head of state to a European
ex-colonial power like Belgium. Historians have accused Belgian
colonial authorities of committing widespread atrocities during
their rule over the Congo until independence in 1960.

But the Senegalese president risks international censure if
he is seen to be sheltering a former ruler accused of major
human rights violations.

“The question is, is Senegal going to align itself with a
former dictator and trample on the rights of thousands of
victims who have been fighting for 15 years to find a court
that will listen to their suffering?” said Reed Brody, a lawyer
with U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The Belgian government has said that if Senegal denies
Habre’s extradition, it will invoke international conventions
against torture signed by both states, and may even take the
case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

In 2000, a court in Senegal charged Habre with torture and
crimes against humanity but later ruled he could not be tried
in the country.

(Additional reporting by Gilles Castonguay in Brussels)