The former President of the Republic of Chad, Hissene Habre has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity by Authorities in Senegal, his lawyer has reported. The charges are tied to atrocities during his eight-year rule in the 1980s.

The 70 year old Habre was detained in Dakar, where he has been living on exile since twenty years ago. He will face trial in a specially designed Senegalese court for charges including genocide, crime against humanity, war crime and torture.

The Human Rights Watch claims to have obtained evidence proving that the regime of Habre oversaw the torture or murder of some 40,000 people.

Senegalese authorities first detained Habre over a decade ago, but he was not tried by the regime of the formal President, Abdoulaye Wade, arguing it did not have the jurisdiction to push ahead with prosecution. Once the laws were changed, it claimed it did not have enough resources to do so.

This trial would go down the memory lane as the first time a court in one country has tried the head of state in another, for rights crimes. Until now, leaders accused of atrocities have only been tried in international courts.