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Trial of Ex-Leader of Chad Suspended After He Refuses to Speak Trial of Ex-Leader of Chad Suspended After He Refuses to Speak
(about 5 hours later)
PARIS — The long-awaited trial of Hissène Habré, the former strongman of Chad, was suspended on Tuesday, its second day, because Mr. Habré refused to speak and his defense team did not show up. PARIS — The long-awaited trial of Hissène Habré, the former strongman of Chad, was suspended on Tuesday — its second day — because Mr. Habré refused to speak and his defense lawyers did not show up.
The judges of the special tribunal in Senegal that is trying Mr. Habré immediately announced that court-appointed defense lawyers would take over, and gave them 45 days to prepare. The court said the trial would resume on Sept. 7. The judges of the special tribunal in Dakar, Senegal, that is trying Mr. Habré immediately announced that court-appointed defense lawyers would take over, and gave them 45 days to prepare. The judges said that the trial would resume on Sept. 7.
Mr. Habré was back in the dock against his will on Tuesday, brought in by security guards, court video showed. He had refused to return to court on Monday after being forcibly removed when he started shouting. On Tuesday, Mr. Habré was back in the courtroom against his will, brought in by guards, court video showed. On Monday, he refused to return to court after being forcibly removed when he began shouting.
“This is not a court, these judges are just administrators, they are on a political mission,” he said, according to a court official. “This is not a court, these judges are just administrators, they are on a political mission,” he said.
Mr. Habré, 72, once a close ally of France and the United States, has made it plain from the start that he will boycott the special court set up in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, by the African Union to try him on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture committed in Chad during his brutal eight-year rule. Mr. Habré, 72, once a close ally of France and the United States, has made it plain from the start that he would boycott the special court established by the African Union to try him on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture committed in Chad during his eight-year rule.
On Tuesday, he refused the chief judge’s request to stand up and then declined to respond when asked if he had lawyers to defend him. On Tuesday, he refused the chief judge’s request to stand up, then declined to respond when asked if he had lawyers to defend him. “Hissène Habré refuses to appear before this court and to defend himself, and of course his lawyers have to respect this,” said François Serres, a French lawyer who heads his team, speaking by phone from Dakar.
“Hissène Habré refuses to appear before this court and to defend himself, and of course his lawyers have to respect this,” said François Serres, a French lawyer who heads Mr. Habré’s team, speaking by telephone from Dakar. For those who were victims of torture and other crimes or whose relatives were killed during the years that Mr. Habré was president of the country and for the human rights groups supporting them, the delay was a setback, which some feared might even derail the trial.
The raucous start to the trial has been hard on the victims of Mr. Habré’s prisons and notorious secret police force. Some have campaigned for more than 15 years to hold him accountable for the torture and killings during his rule from 1982 to 1990. Their campaign to put Mr. Habré in the dock had long involved a search for a venue. The International Criminal Court in The Hague had no jurisdiction, because it could only investigate events after July 2002, when the court was established. The atrocities in Chad occurred in the 1980s.
At one point, one of Mr. Habré’s three wives went up to the victims’ area in court and shouted threats and accused them of having been paid to testify. A witness, speaking by telephone, said Ms. Habré called out to one woman: “You’ve accepted a lot of money to be here, and you will pay for this.” A court in Senegal, where Mr. Habré fled after he was overthrown in 1990, first indicted him in 2000, because Senegal was a party to the Convention against Torture. But the court dropped the case after government pressure. Victims then filed a complaint in Belgium, which requested Mr. Habré’s extradition. 
Florent Geel, the Africa director for the International Federation for Human Rights, who is monitoring the trial, said the delay was disappointing and frustrating for trial participants, many of whom had traveled long distances. After years of foot dragging and an order from the International Court of Justice, either to try him or extradite him, Senegal turned to the African Union, an organization that had long complained that Africans had been singled out by international courts.
“This is an historical trial for Africa, and the African Union, to confront the tradition of impunity,” he said. “Having defense lawyers will be indispensable. But Habré’s refusals will not stop the trial.” Finally, heads of state in the African Union voted that rather than send Mr. Habré to Belgium, he would be put on trial in Senegal “on behalf of Africa.”