Rights coalition asks African Union to compel trial of former Chad president News
Rights coalition asks African Union to compel trial of former Chad president

[JURIST] The Campaign Against Impunity [advocacy website], a group of 300 African and international civil society bodies, has urged the African Union Assembly [official website] to call on Senegal to try former Chad President Hissene Habre [HRW backgrounder; JURIST news archive], Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] said Thursday. The AU will meet in Gambia on July 1 to review a confidential report by an AU committee and discuss possible forums for the Habre trial. The Campaign Against Impunity wants the AU to force Senegal to begin Habre's trial or extradite him to Belgium, where he has been indicted for crimes against humanity [JURIST report]. In May, the UN Committee against Torture [official website] gave Senegal 90 days to fulfill its obligations under the Convention Against Torture [text] to put Habre on trial for torture crimes and rights offenses stemming from his 1982-90 rule in Chad or extradite him to Belgium.

Habre has been living in exile in Senegal since 1990 and in 2005 Belgium issued an international arrest warrant on torture and murder charges. Read the HRW press release. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.