(1)

Soleiman Gongong works as an accountant in an institution in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, a simple citizen, who has nothing to do with politics. The police arrested him on the morning of August 1988 on charges of participating in illegal political activities. In his cell, he raised his head one day to the sky to swear an oath to fight for Justice if he comes out alive, and after two and a half years he actually comes out alive.

(2)

Hissene Habré is a tall, slender man whose stern face is almost openly declaring that he is one of Africa's most powerful tyrants. He spends 8 years in Chad's rule, not a long period when compared to what he spends in power other tyrants, but the years of his rule are years of hell, in which 40 thousand are executed A citizen, and another 200,000 are subjected to torture, and the country is witnessing unprecedented intimidation, repression and corruption, until the dictator president flees to Senegal after a military defeat at the hands of his opponents, carrying with him his wealth, which differed over an estimate of how many million dollars it is, and there in Senegal he lives quietly for 25 years, before the date of retribution.

(3)

Solomon Gongong has nothing to fight his former dictator with, but he decided to keep his promise, and fight for justice, collecting the testimonies of survivors and relatives of those killed by order of Habré. He is already able to record about 700 testimonies detailing what happened to their owners.

His news reaches former members of the Habré regime who continued in their positions after the ousted dictator fled, threatens to kill him, and hides the documents. Despair strikes him and others who decide to pursue the fleeing dictator, which is quickly dispelled by the news of the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in Britain in October. October 1998, based on the principle of universal judicial authority that allows cases involving acts of torture, genocide and other crimes against humanity to be presented without regard to the place in which the crime was committed, the nationality of the perpetrators of those crimes or the nationalities of their victims.

(4)

In 1999, two young lawyers knock on the door of Gongong's house as a survivor of the Habré regime's prisons, telling him that they and other human rights organizations are working to collect victims' testimonies to start legal action against Habré. The man greets them with a smile. The long-awaited day has finally come.

He guides them to the back of his home, where he has hidden some 800 testimonies of the ousted dictator's victims, all of them surreptitiously transcribed and smuggled into the United States.

In January 2000 Sleiman and his colleagues from the Chadian Association of Victims of Crimes and Political Repression filed a complaint against Habré in Senegal, where he is housed.

The following month, Senegalese judge Demba Kanji formally charged Habré with torture and crimes against humanity and placed him under house arrest.

The victims rejoice, until the new Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade decides to transfer Judge Kanji to another place and exclude him from the investigation into the file of dictator Habré. The Court of Appeals later decides to reject the indictment against Habré, and rules that the Senegalese courts have no jurisdiction to consider the case, because the crimes Not committed in Senegal.

The victims are frustrated, but they do not despair. The Chadian League decides to appeal the ruling to the Court of Cassation, which is the highest court in Senegal, but the court unfortunately drops the case against Habré, but the victims are determined to go their own way, so 17 of them in Chad file criminal complaints against the Habré police on torture, murder and disappearance.

(5)

May 2001 brings good news. Human Rights Watch has discovered files by the Habré police that contain thousands of pages of intelligence files detailing the grave human rights violations committed by the regime.

The tyrants are always arrogant, believing that they are smarter than their predecessors, that they will escape justice, and that no one will harm them. They forget that the determination of the victims and their insistence on retribution are capable of inflicting on them the punishment they deserve

In parallel, victims who have moved to Belgium are filing criminal complaints in Brussels under the principle of universal jurisdiction against dictator Habré.

The following year, a Belgian judge and his team visited Chad to investigate the case. The investigation continues for 4 years, ending with the issuance of an international arrest warrant for Habré on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and grave violations of international humanitarian law. Belgium submits a request to Senegal to extradite Habré.

But Senegal insists on rejecting the international request to deport him or even to try him in Senegal itself. Seven years pass by Belgium demanding the International Court of Justice to compel Senegal to try Habré or extradite him. Another 3 years pass and the court rules in Belgium’s favour.

But that is not the end of the story, as it turns out that finding a court to try a head of state is difficult.

With astonishing determination and astonishing determination, the victims and their relatives go to Senegal again and again to present their case to the public, the press and politicians, until the right moment when opposition leader Macky Sall became president of Senegal in 2012.

Indeed, a new law is being passed in December 2012 that allows for the creation of an “Exceptional African Chambers” court in Dakar specifically for this issue.

Habré, who was in his 70s at the time, is arrested, and on July 20, 2015 he finally appears in court, the first time that a former African president has been held accountable for similar crimes before a court in another African country.

(6)

Remarkably, Human Rights Watch attorney Reed Brody said, “I think the first thing to note is that the architects of the justice efforts were not the African Union, they were not the Security Council, they were not the prosecutor in The Hague, they were the victims, and this case shows more than Anything else is that with persistence and perseverance a group of survivors and international NGOs can actually create the political conditions to bring a dictator to justice, whether in Africa or elsewhere."

(7)

Finally, the day that Souleymane Gongong has been waiting for comes, he is now in his sixties, and here he rises to the witness stand in the courtroom in Senegal to speak calmly and steadfastly about his suffering 25 years ago at the hands of Hissene Habré's regime.

Describing those who were tortured, those led away at night, and those who died of disease and ill-treatment in the horrific prisons run by the Habré police, he was glad that he had fulfilled his oath which he had pledged a quarter of a century ago, telling the audience, "From the depths of my cell, from the depths of that madness I swore before God, if I get out alive, I will fight for justice."

Habré's trial lasts 53 days, and includes about 96 witnesses in the case, and on May 30, 2016, the Chadian dictator is convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, including sexual violence and rape, and is sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine of approximately 123 million euros to be paid in compensation to the victims .

The tyrants are always arrogant, believing that they are smarter than their predecessors, that they will escape justice, and that no one will harm them. They forget that the determination of the victims and their insistence on retribution are capable of inflicting on them the punishment they deserve.

Gentlemen victims, no matter how big or small your dictator is, strive to bring him to justice.