Chad's former President Hissene Habre found guilty of crimes against humanity

(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 31 May 2016

The former president of Chad, Hissene Habre, was sentenced to life in prison Monday for war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape, forced sexual slavery, and kidnapping.

He served as president from 1982 to 1990, and during that time 40,000 people were killed and thousands more kidnapped, raped, and tortured. The 73-year-old's case was heard by a special tribunal organized by the African Union, under a deal with Senegal, and it was the first time one country prosecuted a former head of another country for rights abuses, Agence France-Presse reports. Over the course of the 10-month trial, Habre refused to address the court, and never recognized its authority. He has two weeks to appeal the sentence.

Judge Gberdao Gustave Kam said Habre presided over "a system where impunity and terror were the law," and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said the verdict proved "nobody is above the law." In 1990, after he was ousted by current President Idriss Deby, Habre and his wife and children fled to Senegal. Human Rights Watch says his conviction for raping a woman is a first by an international court trying an ex-world leader, and lawyers for the victims are planning on filing civil suits to obtain compensation.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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