Eight years ago, Reed Brody stumbled upon the records of one of Africa's most brutal leaders, Chad's Hissène Habré. Now, two decades after he fell from power, Habré finally faces charges for his crimes -- if, that is, the trial actually happens.
For the two decades that he has been free, Souleymane Guengueng has constantly relived the two years he spent in a Chadian prison, where he watched hundreds of cellmates die from torture and disease. Thrown in jail in 1988 for still-unknown reasons, the deeply religious civil servant took an oath before God: If he ever got out alive, he would bring his tormentors to justice. So when the country's dictator fell in a 1990 coup and Guengueng walked out of prison, he used his considerable charm to persuade still-frightened victims to form an association and start preparing a case against their aggressor. But Chad's new government brought back many of the old henchmen and allowed the former tyrant -- Hissène Habré -- to live in quiet luxury in Senegal.
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