Former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre was forcibly brought to a court in Senegal on Tuesday, where judges adjourned his trial until September 7 to let appointed lawyers prepare his defence.Habre, once dubbed “Africa’s Pinochet”, refused to speak and the court appointed three attorneys to defend him. The trial, seen as a test case for African justice, had opened on Monday, a quarter of a century after his reign came to an end.
Habre – backed during his presidency by France and the United States as a bulwark against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – is on trial over actions under his regime from 1982 until he was ousted in 1990. Rights groups say 40 000 Chadians were killed under Habre’s regime.
The former president, 72, has been in custody in Dakar since his arrest in June 2013 at the home he shared in an affluent suburb of the Senegalese capital with his wife and children
