Senegal rejects UN body's call to act against Habre

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal on Monday brushed aside a United Nations rights body's call for it to try or extradite former Chad President Hissene Habre and said the African Union should deal with the murder and torture charges against him.

Habre ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, when he was deposed, and is living in exile in Senegal. A Chadian official inquiry accused his government of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture. He has denied all knowledge of abuse.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, whose verdicts have moral authority but no legal power, said on Friday Senegal was breaking international human rights law by not taking action against Habre.

In a blunt response, Senegal's Justice Ministry said the country's appeals courts had already ruled that Senegalese justice was neither competent to try Habre nor to decide on a request last year by Belgium for his extradition.

"People should stop telling us that we should judge Hissene Habre or extradite him. It's no longer our affair," Chimere Diouf, secretary-general of the Justice Ministry, told Reuters.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade last year referred Habre's case to the African Union, and the pan-African organisation set up a panel of African jurists to consider what to do with the former Chadian president.

"This case belongs to the African Union," Diouf said.

The AU-appointed panel of legal experts was meeting in Addis Ababa on Monday to make recommendations to AU heads of state ahead of a summit in the Gambian capital Banjul on July 1-2.

"The African Union will take this matter up in Banjul and will take a decision," Senegal's Diouf said.

A Belgian arrest warrant for Habre was issued by a Brussels magistrate last year under the country's universal jurisdiction law, which allows Belgian judges to prosecute human rights violations regardless of where they are committed.

Some of the victims who accuse Habre are naturalised Belgians.

Senegal's terse rejection of the U.N. torture committee's call was likely to anger human rights groups which have criticised Wade's government for not acting against Habre.

They say Senegal should abide by its ratification of a 1984 U.N. Convention against Torture which requires that states either prosecute or extradite alleged torturers.

"When Senegal ratified the torture convention, it promised the world that it wouldn't provide a safe haven to torturers, but in 15 years it has taken no action against Habre," said Alioune Tine of the Dakar-based African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights (RADDHO).

"Now the U.N. is reminding Senegal of its promise. My country can't afford to ignore this ruling," he said in a statement.

Belgium said earlier this year it would consider going to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if Senegal maintained its refusal to extradite Habre.