Chad’s former President Hissene Habre, who was jailed for war crimes and crimes against humanity, has died on Tuesday in Senegal at the age of 79
The spokesperson at the Senegalese Justice Ministry said he fell ill in jail about a week ago and was taken to a clinic in the capital Dakar before being moved to the Hospital Principal, where he died on Tuesday. The cause of death is not yet clear.
Habre ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990 after overthrowing his predecessor Goukouni Oueddeiduring. Thousands were killed, tortured and raped during his presidency, which ended when he was ousted in 1990.
Habre was sentenced to life in prison for rape and ordering the killing and torture of thousands of political opponents after a landmark trial in 2016 in Senegal, where he fled after being ousted from office.
In the words of Reed Brody of the International Commission of Jurists, who has worked with Habre’s victims since 1999, Hissene Habre will go down in history as one of the world’s most pitiless dictators who slaughtered his own people, burned down entire villages, sent women to serve as sexual slaves for his troops and built clandestine dungeons to inflict medieval torture on his enemies.