Belgium’s international arrest warrant against the former Chadian president Hissène Habré is still valid and he could be arrested and extradited to Belgium the moment he leaves Senegal, lawyers to a group of victims who lodged a new complaint of atrocities committed during his regime, from 1982 to 1990, declared Tuesday. The former Chadian president has been living in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, as a refugee for 17 years. They said, however, that legally Habré could not be sued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) since Chad had only recently (2006) ratified the ICC charter. They exonerated Chad’s incumbent president, Idriss Deby, of all crimes committed at the time when he was the commander-in-chief of the Chadian army, saying he was the person who took up arms and chased Habre out of power in 1990. According to figures released by the lawyers, 1,208 people were reported to have died in detention, 12,321 abused in detention while 896 remained missing during Habre’s reign.
