Senegal announces plan to televise Habre war crimes trial

Dakar (AFP) - Senegal and Chad plan to broadcast the proceedings of a tribunal set up to try dictator Hissene Habre for genocide during his brutal eight-year rule, the government in Dakar said Wednesday.

The 70-year-old faces accusations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture in Chad between 1982 and 1990, when some 40,000 people were killed under his regime, according to rights groups.

Arrested in early July after more than two decades in exile in Senegal, Habre was placed on remand in Dakar where he is to stand trial after years of delays by the Senegalese government.

Both nations are keen for the trial to be televised and aired on the radio, Senegalese justice minister Sidiki Kaba told reporters during a visit of his Chadian counterpart Jean-Bernard Padare to Dakar.

"We will work out which media outlets here in Senegal, and which media outlets in Chad, will be given responsibility for the transmission. Because the fundamental issue is the ownership of the trial by both the Senegalese and the Chadians," Kaba said.

Habre's regime was marked by fierce repression of his opponents and the targeting of ethnic groups, and in 1990 he fled to Senegal after being ousted by incumbent president Idriss Deby Itno.

Chad's Commission of Inquiry into Habre's alleged crimes estimates that only 4,000 of his victims have ever been identified.