Former Chad President granted 2-month leave over COVID-19

A judge in Senegal has granted former Chad President Hissene Habre a two-month leave from the jail owing to coronavirus crisis.

Habre is serving a life sentence in a Senegalese jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity during his reign in Chad between 1982 to 1990, Al Jazeera reported.

He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at an African Union-backed trial in the Senegalese capital Dakar in 2016. According to a Chadian commission of inquiry estimated 40,000 people were killed by his regime.

After being overthrown as the leader, Habre left Chad for Senegal and had been living a free man's life in an upmarket suburb in Sudanese capital Dakar with his wife and children.

Habre was arrested in 2013 and tried by a special tribunal set up by the African Union under a deal with Senegal.

His trial was seen as a global precedent in which a foreign country had prosecuted a former leader of another nation for human rights abuse. This was also seen as a landmark case for African rights abuses on the continent.