Hissene Habre ordered to pay compensation to victims

Former Chadian dictator, Hissen Habre has been ordered to pay thousands of euros in compensation to his victims.

Habre who was sentenced to life in May this year by the Extraordinary African Chambers was on Friday ordered to pay compensations of up to 30,000 euros to each victim of rape and sexual slavery.

Victims of arbitrary detention and prisoners of war, or their families will receive compensations of up to 15,000 euros each.

Over 4,700 victims are expected to benefit from the compensation ordered by the court.

“We feel satisfied but somehow we are also flayed because we asked for the erection of monuments at sites where the major massacres took place. Unfortunately, the judges did not give us that,” Jacqueline Moudeina, lead counsel for Habre’s victims said.

Although Moudeina puts the number of Habre’s victims at 4,733 victims, some civil society groups say 8,600 victims have been identified.

The Extraordinary African Chambers, set up by the African Union (AU) in Senegal, on May 30 sentenced Hissene Habre to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture.

Habre’s trial was the first time an AU-backed court had tried a former ruler for human rights abuses.

The ex-ruler however refused to recognise the legitimacy of the court throughout the trial and frequently disrupted proceedings.

Some 40,000 people were killed when Habre ruled Chad between 1982 and 1990. But he has denied ordering the killings.

Survivors recounted horrid details of the torture they endured at the hands of Habre’s secret police.

The victims were said to have endured among others electric shocks, near-asphyxia and cigarette burns.

Habre was arrested in Senegal, where he was exiled, in 2013.