A Chad court Friday sentenced former president Hissen Habre to death for planning a coup.
Habre was sentenced to death along with several other rebel leaders, the BBC reported.
The former president has lived in Senegal since 1991. He fled there after being deposed in 1990 following eight years in power.
A 1992 truth commission in Chad said that Habre's government was responsible for 40,000 politically motivated murders and hundreds of thousands of torture cases.
Habre denies all knowledge of the murders and tortures.
Dozens of other rebel leaders were sentenced in absentia to a lifetime of hard labour for attempting to overthrow President Idriss Deby.
The Chad government is fighting a sporadic rebellion in the east, which borders Sudan's restive Darfur province.
Rebels earlier in the year reached the Chad capital of N'Djamena before being repelled. ( dpa )