Lawyers press for Chad's Hissène Habré to face sexual slavery and rape charges
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Version 0 of 1. A group of international lawyers is pressing for sexual slavery and rape to be included on the list of charges against the former president of Chad Hissène Habré, who is currently standing trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture. Sixteen leading lawyers, including Justice Richard Goldstone, a South African former judge and head of the post-Apartheid Goldstone Commission; Patricia Sellers, a special adviser to the international criminal court (ICC); and Madeleine Rees, secretary general of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, have asked for the charges against Habré to be revised in the light of testimony from women at the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal, which is trying Habré. Related: Will Hissène Habré's victims in Chad finally get justice? | Celeste Hicks Sexual crimes were not specifically included in the original indictment against Habré, who ruled Chad between 1982 and 1990, but during the course of witness testimony, which began in September, the EAC heard from four women who spoke of being kept in secret prisons where they were used as sexual slaves. Appearing in a packed, mostly male, courtroom, the women detailed being knocked to the ground, stabbed, given electric shocks and forced to take birth control pills. One woman testified that Habré had raped her. She made the allegations with Habré sitting in front of her in the court, wearing a white turban and dark glasses. The woman reportedly received threats on her return to Chad, where there are no provisions for witness protection. Habré’s defence team, which is boycotting the trial, issued a statement dismissing one of the women as a “nymphomaniac prostitute”. “This case is quite extraordinary in that not only do we have allegations of sexual violence committed by the defendant’s subordinates, but we also have allegations of rape and sexual torture committed by Habré personally. This is really rare,” said Kim Thuy Seelinger, director of the sexual violence programme at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the team that drew up an “amicus brief” to the presiding judges. The brief is a memo to the court explaining how the charges could be revised under the EAC statute and customary international law. The brief was lodged with the court last week, just days before the end of the witness testimonies. The team that submitted the brief hopes the document will be used to revise the charges. Last week, presiding judge Gberdao Gustave Kam acknowledged receipt of the brief, but has yet to rule on whether it will be officially accepted in the record, which is the first step towards getting the charges revised. “If the charges are not revised, Habré can’t be convicted of most of these specific acts and it will be like saying to these survivors that their experiences of sexual violence don’t count,” added Seelinger. Habré’s appearance at the EAC – a special court established by the African Union (AU) under the existing Senegalese justice system – marks the first time the courts of one African country have been used to try the former leader of another. The charges against Habré relate to actions of a network of secret police under his command known as the DDS (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité). Up to 40,000 people are thought to have died during his eight-year rule of Chad. On 15 December the last witness gave evidence, bringing to a close three months of testimony, where 98 people took the stand against the former dictator, giving details of what happened to them. Victims have talked about having their mouths forced around the exhaust pipes of running cars, being made to dig mass graves for their fellow prisoners, witnessing mass executions, and having their hands and feet bound behind their back in an excruciating position known as arbatachar (14 in Arabic). Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, which has been assisting the Chadian victims groups, said it had been a ground-breaking event. “The fact that the trial has been streamed live on the internet, televised extensively in Chad and well-covered in the Senegalese and Chadian press has allowed the public to appreciate the serious nature of the allegations against Habré and what it looks like to see a dictator brought to trial.” Habré was toppled in a coup in 1990 led by Chad’s current president, Idriss Déby Itno, and fled into exile in Senegal. His trial is the culmination of a 25-year search for justice by a number of Chadian victims groups who took their battle to the AU and Belgium – the country has a universal jurisdiction law – before Senegal signed an agreement with the AU in 2012 to put him on trial. Habré has rejected the authority of the EAC and has refused to speak throughout the trial, even when the judge has addressed him. He was given a court-appointed defence team after his own lawyers refused to participate. He denies the charges. Lawyers now have until 8 February to file any additional submissions before summing up begins. A verdict is expected in May. |