Hissene Habre, Chad’s former dictator, dies of COVID-19

Hissene Habre, former Chadian head of state, has died at the age of 79.

He was being treated for COVID-19 before he breathed his last on Tuesday at a hospital in Senegal.

In 2016, Habre became the first former head of state to be convicted of crimes against humanity by an African Union-backed court after his government was found guilty of killing tens of thousands of people.

The ex-dictator was accused of aiding crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, 40,000 politically motivated murders, and 200,000 cases of torture while in power between 1982 and 1990.

He was first arrested in 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016.

Habre was into the fifth year of his sentence when he died.

He was born in 1942 in the northern Chadian town of Faya-Largeau.

Habre became prime minister under then-President Felix Malloum in 1978, but Malloum fell from power the following year.

He then wrestled power from Goukouni Oueddei, a former rebel comrade, in 1982.

He remained in power until 1990 when rebels ousted him.