AU must speed Senegal trial for Chad's Habre -group
By Alistair Thomson
DAKAR, Jan 26 (Reuters) - U.S.-based Human Rights Watch urged African Union leaders meeting next week to speed up prosecution by Senegal of former Chadian leader Hissene Habre over political killings and torture under his 8-year rule.
Senegal, where Habre has lived since his overthrow in 1990, agreed at an AU summit in July to bring him to trial. An inquiry by the new Chadian government accused Habre's administration of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture.
Habre denies all knowledge of abuses and says the government inquiry was politically motivated.
"President (Abdoulaye) Wade's agreement to try Hissene Habre was a turning point in the long campaign to bring him to justice," Human Rights Watch said in a report on successive attempts to try Habre in Senegal and Belgium since 2000.
"Senegal has also announced the establishment of a commission to prepare Habre's trial. However, six months have passed since President Wade's agreement without substantial progress," it said.
Human Rights Watch called on African Union leaders meeting at a summit in Ethiopia next week to appoint a special envoy to help coordinate assistance for Senegal in preparing the trial.
Victims say Habre's political police imprisoned, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Chadian civilians suspected of opposing his rule during a reign of terror in the 1980s.
"For the repose of the souls of the dead, Hissene Habre must answer for his deeds," Chadian President Idriss Deby, who overthrew Habre in 1990, said after meeting victims this week.
Senegalese courts have previously ruled they cannot try Habre and refused to rule on an extradition request by Belgium.
The West African country must pass new legislation against torture to provide the legal basis for the trial to go ahead.
The Dakar government approved the necessary legislation and created a commission to prepare the trial in November, when it also appealed for foreign help to fund the trial, but parliament has yet to start dealing with the bill, Human Rights Watch said.
A national assembly spokesman was unavailable for comment.
Senegal's parliament was expected to be dissolved due to legislative elections originally scheduled for Feb. 25.
But the polls, already delayed from May 2006 because of a flooding disaster, were postponed for a second time a fortnight ago in a legal dispute over the electoral process, casting uncertainty over the assembly's legislative programme.
Wade is campaigning for re-election in presidential elections still due to go ahead on Feb. 25.
Habre leads a reclusive life in a Dakar mansion but has won support among Senegal's politically influential marabouts, or Muslim teachers, fuelling expectations that work on the sensitive case will only start in earnest after the elections.
