Former Chad leader Habre to hang

N’DJAMENA, Friday

A court in Chad sentenced exiled former President Hissene Habre and several leaders of an eastern rebellion to death Friday, the clerk of the criminal court in the capital N’Djamena said.

Court Clerk Enoch Ngartebaye told Reuters the accused included the former president Habre, who has lived in exile in Senegal since Idriss Deby, now Chad’s president, overthrew him in 1990.

On the instructions of the African Union, Senegal is preparing to try Habre for alleged torture and political killings committed under his rule in Chad, a landlocked oil producing country in central Africa.

In a hearing this week, the court tried a number of rebel leaders in absentia, including Mahamat Nouri, head of the rebel National Alliance, and Timane Erdimi, head of the Rally of Forces for Change (RFC).

Twelve men, including Habre, Nouri and Erdimi, were sentenced to death.

The court did not issue any arrest warrant for those sentenced in absentia.

Deby has been fighting a sporadic rebellion based around the country’s eastern border with Sudan’s Darfur region.

Darfur’s 5-year-old conflict has spilled over the frontier, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees, as well as armed rebels, into eastern Chad.

Chadian rebels have twice crossed the country to attack the capital N’Djamena in the west, most recently in February when they were repelled by loyalist forces who received logistical help from Libyan and French forces.