Former President of Chad Hissen Habré, known as “African Pinochet,”, died at the age of 79 in a Senegal prison, where he served a life imprisonment on charges of crimes against humanity. This is reported by the Reutrts Agency, referring to the Department of Justice Senegal.
Habré fell in prison about a week ago, he was taken to Dakar’s hospital, where he died. Senegal authorities did not announce the cause of the death of the former Chad leader.
Habré rules from 1982 to 1990 after the overthrow of his predecessor Gukun Waddey. Having come to power, Habra deployed a large-scale terror against socialists, separatists and tribal hostile to him. As a result of repression and punitive expeditions, about 100 thousand people were killed, about 200 thousand people were subjected to torture. In 1990, he was forced to escape from the country and hide in Senegal. In 2008, Chad’s authorities sentenced the former president to the death penalty.
In 2012, the UN International Criminal Court ordered the power of Senegal to arrest Habré. In May 2016, he was recognized as guilty of sprauls over his political opponents, sentenced to life imprisonment.
“Hissen Habré will go down in history as one of the most ruthless dictators in the world, the person who killed his people, burned the whole villages, enslaved women and built secret toy prisons,” said Reed Brody from the International Commission of Lawyers who worked with victims Habré regime since 1999.