Hague court may order trials for exiled ex-rulers

A landmark ruling to be given by a court in The Hague on Friday, on whether or not Senegal is obliged to try or extradite Chad’s former leader, has major implications for other autocrats now in exile or considering exile to escape popular uprisings at home.At one level, Friday’s ruling will be the latest step in a long-running campaign by human rights activists to bring to trial Hissene Habre, who as Chadian president led a government they accuse of killing and torturing its opponents in the 1980s.But legal experts say the case - brought by Belgium against Senegal, where Habre is living - could create a clear legal obligation on the states that harbour deposed despots to put them on trial or extradite them for trial elsewhere.The ruling could worry former rulers like Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president overthrown in January 2011 at the start of the Arab Spring and now in exile in Saudi Arabia.But it could also deter other leaders facing mounting violence at home, such as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from going into exile despite promises or guarantees of amnesty.“If Belgium is successful, it will mean that third states would be able to oblige states on whose territory an accused war criminal resides to either prosecute such persons or extradite them to a state which can and wishes to prosecute,” Malcolm Shaw, a law professor at Cambridge University, said in an email.The case is reminiscent of Augusto Pinochet’s arrest in London on a Spanish arrest warrant in 1998 for crimes committed while he was leader of Chile in the 1970s and 1980s.Like that one, Belgium’s case against Senegal highlights the creativity of human rights activists in seeking new ways to bring to trial leaders accused of serious crimes even when they are thought to be safe from justice.