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International human rights lawyer Reed Brody has been dubbed the “Dictator Hunter.” He has helped pursue and bring to justice notorious dictators including Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier of Haiti and Yahya Jammeh of Gambia.
One dictator became a special focus of Brody’s global pursuit of justice. Hissène Habré was the former despot who ruled Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990. Habré met with then-President Ronald Reagan and was armed and backed by the U.S. Habré, who was dubbed “Africa’s Pinochet,” was accused of ordering the killing of 40,000 people and the torture of 200,000 people during his reign of terror.
“The saying used to be that if you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 40 people, you are put in an insane asylum; but if you kill 40,000 people, you get a safe haven and a fat bank account in the country of your choosing,” Brody wrote.
For 16 years, Reed Brody led a team of investigators, lawyers and victims that spanned three continents as they pursued Habré. This global hunt culminated in Habré’s trial in Senegal in 2016. Habré became the first former head of state to be convicted of crimes against humanity in the courts of another country. The dictator, who had lived in seaside luxury in Senegal for 25 years, was sentenced to life in prison. Habré died of Covid-19 during his imprisonment in August 2021.
Brody recounts his global quest for justice in his new book, “To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial Of Hissène Habré.”
Brody argues that the precedent of holding dictators like Habré and Pinochet to account can also be applied to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
But pursuing tyrants requires patience.
“Even assuming that he’s indicted for war crimes or for aggression by a special tribunal, which is being discussed, unless there’s a radical change in Russia, nobody is going to come in and arrest Vladimir Putin,” Brody said. “That said, these indictments will hang over his head all his life. And we see in other cases like Cambodia and elsewhere that you may not prosecute somebody today or in 10 years, but maybe 20 years or 30 years.”
Brody is critical of the double standard in international law, where human rights abuses by western leaders go unpunished.
“I spent a long time documenting crimes committed against prisoners during the so called War on Terror in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons,” he said. “George Bush, president of the United States authorized torture. He authorized waterboarding … There has never been accountability for that.”
Brody has seen the rise and fall of dictators around the world. He knows the fragility of democracy.
“I am very worried about democracy in the U.S.,” he said. “It’s going to require all of our organizing … to preserve or at least to reconquer our institutions.”