CAT/C/36/D/181/2001
page 3
Committee, acting under article 108, paragraph 9, of its rules of procedure, requested the State
party, as an interim measure, not to expel Hissène Habré and to take all necessary measures to
prevent him from leaving the territory other than under an extradition procedure. The State party
acceded to this request.
The facts as submitted by the complainants
2.1
Between 1982 and 1990, during which period Hissène Habré was President of Chad, the
complainants were purportedly tortured by agents of the Chadian State answerable directly to
President Hissène Habré. The acts of torture committed during this period formed the subject of
a report by the National Commission of Inquiry established by the Chadian Ministry of Justice;
according to that report 40,000 political murders and systematic acts of torture were committed
by the Habré regime.
2.2
The complainants have submitted to the Committee a detailed description of the torture
and other forms of ill-treatment that they claim to have suffered. Moreover, relatives of two of
them, Valentin Neatobet Bidi and Ramadane Souleymane, have disappeared: on the basis of
developments in international law and the case law of various international bodies, the
complainants consider this equivalent to torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment,
both for the disappeared persons and, in particular, for their relations.
2.3
After being ousted by the current President of Chad, Idriss Déby, in December 1990,
Hissène Habré took refuge in Senegal, where he has since resided. In January 2000, the
complainants lodged a complaint against him with an examining magistrate in Dakar. On
3 February 2000, the examining magistrate charged Hissène Habré with being an accomplice to
acts of torture, placed him under house arrest and opened an inquiry against a person or persons
unknown for crimes against humanity.
2.4
On 18 February 2000, Hissène Habré applied to the Indictment Division of the Dakar
Court of Appeal for the charge against him to be dismissed. The complainants consider that,
thereafter, political pressure was brought to bear to influence the course of the proceedings.
They allege in particular that, following this application, the examining magistrate who had
indicted Hissène Habré was transferred from his position by the Supreme Council of Justice and
that the President of the Indictment Division before which the appeal of Hissène Habré was
pending was transferred to the Council of State.
2.5
On 4 July 2000, the Indictment Division dismissed the charge against Hissène Habré
and the related proceedings on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction, affirming that “Senegalese
courts cannot take cognizance of acts of torture committed by a foreigner outside Senegalese
territory, regardless of the nationality of the victims: the wording of article 669 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure excludes any such jurisdiction.” Following this ruling, the Special
Rapporteurs on the question of torture and on the independence of judges and lawyers of the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights expressed their concerns in a press release
dated 2 August 2000.2
2.6
On 7 July 2000, the complainants filed an appeal with Senegal’s Court of Cassation
against the ruling of the Indictment Division, calling for the proceedings against Hissène Habré