EXILED FORMER PRESIDENT GETS DEATH SENTENCE IN CHAD

a Chadian criminal court condemned exiled former president Hissene Habre to death in absentia for crimes against humanity, judicial officials said. The court also sentenced 11 Chadian rebel leaders to death in absentia. All 12 defendants were convicted for having attacked the "constitutional order and the integrity and security of the territory." Among the 11 rebel leaders convicted and sentenced was their overall leader Mahamat Nouri. Another 31 rebels were sentenced, also in absentia, to life sentences with hard labour for having carried out attacks designed to destroy or overthrow the regime of President Idriss Deby Itno. The court also ordered the confiscation of all the goods belonging to those convicted, each of whom was ordered to pay a single CFA franc in symbolic compensation to the state. An official truth commission report in 1992 accused Habre's regime of committing some 40,000 political murders. Dakar-based African human rights watchdog Raddho, a civil party to the planned Senegalese trial of Habre, said it "totally disapproved" of the death sentence for the Chadian dictator. "It is an iniquitous, political and hurried decision .... We are fundamentally opposed to the death sentence and we have always been against a trial for Habre in Chad due to the weakness of the judicial system and the fact that it is often used for political means," Raddho spokesman Alioune Tine, told AFP.