Former Chad dictator Hissene Habre on Monday denied the legitimacy of the special court set up to try him in Senegal for the deaths of thousands during his rule, but the head of the tribunal said he would be compelled to participate.

‘This is not a trial, this is a masquerade!’ said a white robed Habre soon after entering.

The former Chadian president will stand trial for crimes against humanity, torture and war crimes. This is a false trial.

Proceedings then began without him.

Habre was first indicted by a Senegalese judge in 2000, according to Human Rights Watch, but twists and turns, arrests and releases over more than a decade brought the case to Belgium, and then finally back to Senegal, where Habre fled after being overthrown in 1990.

Rights groups say 40,000 Chadians were killed between 1982 and 1990 under a regime propped up by fierce crackdowns on opponents and the targeting of rival ethnic groups he perceived as a threat to his stranglehold on the central African nation.

Under a new president, Senegal’s national assembly adopted a much-anticipated law to create the special tribunal.

Brody described the trial as a “test case for African justice”, adding it was the first time that the concept of “universal jurisdiction” – that a suspect can be prosecuted for their past crimes wherever in the world they find themselves – had been implemented in Africa.

“This is the end of a nightmare and we are moved by a sense of pride”, said Jacqueline Moudeina, lead lawyer for the victims, seated on a bench some 20 metres (66 ft) behind Habre.

“We want to show the Chadian people, and why not all Africans, that no, you cannot govern in terror and criminality”, said Souleymane Guengueng, 66, a former accountant who spent more than two years in Habre’s prisons. About 100 are expected to testify during hearings that are likely to last three months. “This process touches humanity… a humanity that was not afforded to these victims”, she said in her opening statement.

Moudeina said the case for the prosecution – particularly documents demonstrating a direct link between Habre the country’s secret police, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS) – was “solid”.

After living freely in exile in Senegal for 22 years, Habre was detained in Dakar in July 2013, less than 72 hours after U.S. president Barack Obama during a visit to Senegal expressed his support to try the ex-leader.

When in power, Habre had received substantial support from the United States and France because he was seen as a “bulwark” against former Libya dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to Human Rights Watch.