Chad's Habre to face war crime charges

Chad's former president Hissene Habre said in an interview published Thursday that he would be willing to appear before an international tribunal to answer charges of atrocities during his 1982-1990 rule. "We want Chad and Chadians to see justice done, don't we? I totally agree. I totally agree that we should organise an independent international judicial process, and that all Chadians accused of something appear before this court," he told the weekly La Gazette. "That includes Hissene Habre, and former presidents of Chad," he added. Habre ruled Chad from 1982 until 1990, when he was ousted by incumbent President Idriss Deby Itno and fled into exile in Senegal, where he has been living since. A 1992 truth commission report in Chad said Habre had presided over 40,000 political murders and widespread torture. Senegal has reversed a decision to send Habre back to Chad, where he faces the death penalty for alleged crimes against humanity, after UN rights chief Navi Pillay warned that he could be tortured there. On Monday, the Belgian foreign ministry announced that it would broach the option with Senegal's ambassador of trying Habre in Belgium, for crimes against humanity. Belgium has wanted to try Habre since 2005, when it issued an international arrest warrant against him for "serious violations of international humanitarian law." Habre said that in the voluminous dossier against him in Belgium "you won't find anyone saying that Hissene Habre tortured them. I don't deny that under my regime there were things or that which we call blunders." Chad was at war with the neighbouring Libya of Colonel Moamer Kadhafi in the 1980s and Habre believes there are many others who have crimes to answer to. "Libyans massacred thousands of Chadians, took Chadian youth home and made them slaves ... the French themselves killed, raped, murdered...," he alleged. Of his near-expulsion, Habre said: "There is no doubt, it is a political conspiracy to have me assassinated. He accuses former colonial power France and Kadhafi of being behind this alleged conspiracy.