Chad's former dictator Hissene Habre, whose government was accused of killing tens of thousands and became the first former head of state to be convicted of crimes against humanity by an African court after spending decades in luxurious exile in Senegal, has died in a hospital in Senegal. He was 79.

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Habre, whose case for years showcased Africa's reluctance to put its despots on trial, had recently contracted COVID-19 according to local media reports. His death Tuesday at a Dakar hospital was confirmed by Jean Bertrand Bocande, director of the penitentiary administration.

The former dictator had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 but ultimately served about five years in prison following his trial on charges linked to his time in power from 1982 to 1990.

Human rights activists say Chad was a ruthless, one-party state under Habre's rule. A fearsome security service headed by members of Habre's Gorane ethnic group was placed in every village, documenting even the slightest transgressions against the regime, they said.

The list of offenses meriting arrest included speaking ill of Habre, listening to "enemy" radio stations or "performing magical rites to aid the enemy," according to a truth commission appointed shortly after Habre fell from power.

The commission concluded that Habre's government oversaw 40,000 killings.

"Hissene Habre will go down in history as one of the world's most pitiless dictators, a man who slaughtered his own people, burned down entire villages, sent women to serve as sexual slaves for his troops and built clandestine dungeons to inflict medieval torture on his enemies," tweeted Reed Brody, a Human Rights Watch lawyer who worked for years to bring Habre to justice.

Earlier this year he wrote that five years after Habre's conviction "torture survivors and families of the dead have not seen one penny."

"The African Union has failed even to establish the court-mandated trust fund to search for Habre's assets and solicit contributions," Brody wrote. "The Chadian government, ordered by its own court to erect memorials and compensate victims, has also turned its back on them. And Habre himself has never accounted for the tens of millions of dollars he allegedly looted from the Chadian treasury."

Detainees were subject to a wide range of torture techniques. Some were burned, others were sprayed with poison gas and still more were forced to put their mouths around the exhaust pipes of running vehicles, causing severe burning when the motor accelerated.

Habre was born the son of a farmer in the northern Chadian town of Faya-Largeau in 1942. The country was still under French colonial rule, and he worked as a civilian for the French military before being selected to study in France, where he earned a law degree.

He returned in 1971 to work for Chad's foreign affairs ministry, but he soon became involved in a peasant rebellion of Muslim northerners against the largely southern-dominated Christian government.

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His rise did not seem driven by ideology. The final report of the truth commission sharply criticized Habre's opportunism, describing him as "a man without scruples" motivated by power alone. "Thus he would join with the armed rebellion one moment and with the government the next. To win over public sympathy, he portrayed himself by turns as a convinced Maoist and a fervent Muslim," the report said.

In a later passage, the report said that despite Habre's education, his "comportment and thinking are not much different from those of a camel thief."

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

In 1982, Habre deposed President Goukouni Oueddei, beginning his eight years as head of state. Aware that his regime was under threat from Libya, Habre created his security service known as the Directorate of Documentation and Security, or DDS, not long after becoming president.

He received substantial support from the United States and France because he was seen as a "bulwark" against former Libya dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to Human Rights Watch. Habre received hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid and was invited to the White House, HRW says, while support from France came in the form of arms and logistical support.

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The Palestinian Authority tortured Palestinians who took part in a US-led peace workshop in Bahrain in 2019, the US State Department said in a recent report.

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The Peace to Prosperity workshop was part of former US President Donald Trump's plan to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The PA boycotted the event, but several individual Palestinians took part in it – and, according to the US, drew Ramallah's ire.

The 2020 Country Report on Human Rights, released by the State Department on Tuesday, included references to reports that "Palestinian security forces arrested, intimidated, and tortured Palestinians following their participation in an international conference in Bahrain."

Some of the Palestinians who attended the conference "reported direct and indirect threats of violence from Fatah, members of Fatah's Tanzim [militia], Hamas, and other groups, some with possible ties to the PA," the report added.

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Their personal property and businesses were reportedly targeted in attacks, and their families face pressure and calls to disown them over their visit to Bahrain.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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The United States demanded Tuesday that the status of tens of thousands of civilians detained in Syria during the country's 10-year conflict be made public and that the bodies of those who died be returned to their loved ones.

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US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the demand at an informal high-level UN General Assembly meeting on human rights in Syria where she denounced the "brutality" and "untold suffering" caused by Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and the "appalling atrocities" it has committed.

"The Assad regime continues to imprison tens of thousands of innocent Syrians – women and children, the elderly, doctors and providers, journalists, human rights defenders," she said. "At least 14,000 Syrians have been reportedly tortured and tens of thousands forcibly disappeared."

Her demand for the status of detainees and return of bodies "with the time, place and cause of death" follows Monday's release of a new report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria which said the Syrian government arbitrarily arrested and detained individuals and committed "war crimes and crimes against humanity in the context of detention." Other parties in the conflict also committed crimes by unlawfully and arbitrarily depriving individuals of their liberty, it said.

Today, @UNCoISyria publishes report looking back on 10 years of heinous violations & abuses in detention facilities in #Syria #humanrights Read there report here: https://t.co/SOHLTdK9dr (Arabic version to follow) See the full video here: https://t.co/BKayTKURH9 pic.twitter.com/vofBilo9Jh

— UN Syria Commission (@UNCoISyria) March 1, 2021

Karen Koning AbuZayd, who headed the commission of inquiry, said that in addition to the tens of thousands who have been wrongfully detained, thousands more have been subject to torture, sexual violence or death in captivity.

Despite the "staggering" wealth of evidence, almost all parties to the conflict "failed to investigate their own forces," she said.

"The focus appears to be on concealing, rather than investigating crimes committed in the detention facilities," she added in a statement.

Investigators maintained that the warring parties have continued to mistreat detainees held in "notorious detention facilities across the country," forcing them to endure "unimaginable suffering."

The report concludes that this has been happening with the knowledge and acquiescence of the governments who have supported the different parties to the conflict, and calls on them to bring an end to the violations.

"While the Commission has consistently urged such releases based on abhorrent, inhuman conditions of detention, the urgency is even greater now given that overcrowded prisons are likely breeding grounds for COVID-19, where detainees in fragile health may not survive," said commission member Hanny Megally.

Since Syria's conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests that led to a civil war, rival groups have been blamed for atrocities. They run jails where widespread violations are reported against detainees.

The Syrian conflict has killed nearly half a million people, displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million, including 5 million who are refugees abroad. Large parts of Syria are destroyed and tens of thousands still live in tent settlements.

Thomas-Greenfield said "the United States stands with the Syrian people, Syrian civil society, and a wide group of international partners in demanding accountability and supporting a political solution" set out in a Security Council resolution adopted in December 2015 which unanimously endorsed a road map to peace in Syria adopted in Geneva on June 30, 2012.

It was approved by representatives of the United Nations, Arab League, European Union, Turkey and all five permanent Security Council members – the US, Russia, China, France and Britain.

The roadmap calls for a Syrian-led political process starting with the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections. In late January, UN special envoy Geir Pedersen expressed disappointment that five rounds of talks failed to lead to the start of drafting a new constitution, hinting that the Syrian government delegation was to blame for the lack of progress.

Germany's UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen said a political resolution must be in line with the 2015 resolution, "but this political solution can only be reached if Russia, in particular, puts pressure on the regime to agree to a real political solution."

He called vetoes by Russia and China of a UN resolution that would have kept more than one border crossing point for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria "inhumane." And he said "it remains very disappointing that Russia blocked the International Criminal Court" from investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, stressing that accountability is key to reconciliation.

Russian Senior Counselor Stepan Kuzmenkov, whose country is Syria's most important ally, dismissed the "unverified accusations, lies and conjecture" about the country's human rights.

He said it was "a pity" that speakers didn't talk about the real problems that Syria and its government have been dealing with – fighting against "terrorist groups" especially in northwest Idlib and "the illegal occupation of its territory by the United States and the violation of its natural resources."

"Today's meeting has nothing to do with international cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights," Kuzmenkov said. "Accordingly, the discussion imposed on us cannot help stabilize the situation in Syria or international efforts to find a settlement in that country."

Mazen Darwish, president of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, called for a nationwide cease-fire and an urgent meeting under the aegis of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of all countries concerned by the Syrian conflict to draw up a roadmap to implement the 2015 Security Council resolution "in its entirety."

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He told the assembly by video link there must also be an end to the death penalty, a list and inspection of all detention sites and detainees, and the release of all those arbitrarily detained, "first and foremost" women, children, the sick and elderly.

"There cannot be lasting peace in Syria without transitional justice," Darwish stressed.

"Äny attempt to achieve a political agreement which guarantees the interest of warlords, disregarding the grievances of victims that simply want justice will ultimately only lead to a new war for revenge," he warned.

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German court Wednesday sentenced a former member of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's security services to four and a half years in prison for facilitating the torture of civilians, the first such verdict for crimes against humanity in the 10-year-long Syrian civil war.

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The higher regional court in the western city of Koblenz said that before moving to Germany, Eyad A. had arrested at least 30 anti-government protesters in Syria at the start of the conflict in 2011 and sent them to an intelligence facility where he knew detainees were tortured.

The verdict gives hope to the 800,000 Syrian refugees in Germany who say they were tortured in government facilities after attempts to establish an international tribunal for Syria failed.

"This is an important step forward in the process of securing accountability for the Syrian government's systematic use of torture against civilians," Steve Kostas, a lawyer with the Open Society Foundation's Justice Initiative, which is representing the Syrian plaintiff, said.

The Assad government denied all such allegations.

Eyad A.'s lawyers asked for an acquittal, saying he had carried out the arrests in and around Damascus under duress by his superiors. He requested from the court to consider him a witness in broader legal efforts against the Syrian government.

The same court will continue hearings in the case of a second suspect identified as Anwar R., a former intelligence officer charged with 58 murders in a Damascus prison where prosecutors say at least 4,000 opposition activists were tortured between 2011 and 2012.

Syrian human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said the unprecedented verdict would speed up efforts to bring charges against former members of the Syrian government suspected of war crimes who fled to Europe.

"History has been made," al-Bunni said. "The first verdict against a member of the Syrian regime's torture and murder machine is a verdict against the whole regime, not just against one individual. It gives hope that justice is possible."

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Two years ago, Jerusalem District Court Judge Moshe Drori ruled that the PA was responsible for abuses against 52 Israeli and Palestinian citizens from Judea and Samaria that included murder, abduction, imprisonment, torture, and rape.

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The ruling described horrific violations: the victims were subjected to electric shocks, being hanged upside down for long periods of time, having molten plastic being poured on their bodies, having their fingernails and teeth pulled out, forced sterilization, denial of sleep and food, and the murder and rape of their relatives. One account described how a premature baby related to one of the victims was intentionally removed from its incubator.

Following the ruling, the court ordered the PA to pay the plaintiffs compensation totaling 14 million shekels ($3.9 million) for denying them their liberty and an additional 1.5 million shekels ($410,000) in court costs.

The Jerusalem Institute for Justice and attorney Barak Kedem, who represented the plaintiffs in the Jerusalem District Court, joined forces in order to "show the world the brutality with which the Palestinian Authority treats its prisoners."

On Monday, the filmed testimonies of the former prisoners are slated to be shown at the International Criminal Court. Attorney Uri Morad, head of the international law department at the JIJ, explained that "In February, we contacted the ICC at The Hague and asked for a criminal probe into PA President Mahmoud Abbas on suspicion of crimes he [allegedly] perpetrated against his own people, including an ongoing and extensive spree of murder, torture, and illegal imprisonments against the Palestinian population.

"The testimonies that will be presented tomorrow [Monday] demonstrate a well-oiled system that uses violent means to oppress the civilian population," Morad said.

Kedem added: "The fact that we have people here who experienced that hell should horrify any human. It doesn't matter what people you belong to or what your political opinions are … I hope that as a result of our appeal to The Hague and to world leaders, other countries will ask themselves whether they want to stay part of the system that sends money to the PA, and we hope that The Hague will hold the perpetrators of these atrocities to account."

One of the victims whose testimony will be shown at the ICC said, "I wished for death more than 20 times a day because of the suffering. The torture was awful. Once they sat me on an electric chair. I was sure I was going to die."

Another said: "The top guy showed me an explosives belt and said I would either wear it and carry out a bombing in Israel, or they would kill me right there."

Another Palestinian told the camera that he once entered Israel illegally with the goal of perpetrating a terrorist attack, but was badly hurt in a car accident. He was rushed to an Israeli hospital, where he was saved. The medical care he received in Israel prompted him to change his opinions and begin collaborating with Israel in its war against terrorism.

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In July 2017, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the PA had tortured 52 Palestinians who collaborated with Israel. The ruling included a detailed description of the acts to which the 52 individuals were subjected.

The precedent-setting, 2,000-page ruling marked a victory for Palestinians who fled the PA-controlled areas and resettled in Israel.

Five lawsuits involving dozens of plaintiffs were filed against the Palestinian Authority over its crackdown on suspected collaborators, the oldest dating from 14 years ago. Ultimately, the court combined the lawsuits into a single case.

All the plaintiffs said they had been locked up in basements of PA-run detention centers, where interrogators tortured them. Their testimonies told similar, graphic stories of physical and sexual assaults. They also reported executions.

According to Thursday's ruling, the PA will compensate the 52 victims for wrongful imprisonment. Additional compensation for the torture the collaborators endured will be decided upon at a later date.

Attorney Barak Kedem and Arie Abrus, who are representing the collaborators, said Thursday: "We welcome the court's landmark ruling. The judge saw the plaintiffs' disabilities [resulting from torture], understood their distress, and decided to grant them partial compensation immediately."

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