Hissene Habre, former Chadian President and ally of the West in the Cold War era, who was jailed for war crimes and crimes against humanity, has died.
Habre, who had been serving a life sentence in Senegal for his crimes, died aged 79 at a hospital in Dakar after contracting COVID-19.
Habre fled to Senegal after being ousted in a 1990 coup. He lived for more than 20 years lived a free man in an upmarket Dakar suburb with his wife and children.
In 2016, he was sentenced to life in prison for rape and ordering the killing and torture of thousands of political opponents during his eight-year rule.
Some 40,000 people are estimated to have been killed under Habre’s leadership.
He served his sentence in a penal establishment in Cap Manuel, at the tip of the peninsula where Dakar is located.
In April 2020, a judge granted Habre two months’ leave from prison as the jail was converted to holding new detainees in Coronavirus quarantine.
