Ethiopian war criminals may leave Italian embassy after nearly 30 years

Ethiopian war criminals may leave Italian embassy after nearly 30 years

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Berhanu Bayeh and Addis Tedla, two senior officials of the former Ethistu military regime of Ethiopia, who were sentenced to death for war crimes, were put on trial by an Ethiopian federal court, according to a diplomatic source with knowledge of the situation.
They were sentenced to death in absentia in 2008, along with former Soviet-backed Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, for their participation in the torture and execution of thousands of people, amounting to genocide.
The president of Ethiopia, Sahle-Work Zewde, on December 19 converted their death sentences into life imprisonment. The federal court has voted two on one to release them on Christmas Eve, after Ethiopian Attorney General Gedion Timothewos asked for indulgence because of their old age.

The two men are now awaiting the official transfer of the sentence from the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, to which they will depart.

Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Emanuela Claudia Del Re thanked Ethiopia for approving the trial.

“An old page of history is definitely being turned over,” she said in a tweet Monday. “Italy and Ethiopia share a long and prosperous future together.”

“Life is a human right – the decision to put former government officials to the test is in line with human rights obligations and commitments,” said Daniel Bekele, chief commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, describing himself as an ‘independent nation’. ‘setting. “It is also a symbolic indication of Ethiopia’s commitment to turn a page on one of the saddest chapters in its recent history.”

Mengistu was chairman of the Derg, a communist party that came to power in Ethiopia in 1974. Bayeh served for a time as Derg’s foreign minister and Tedla was chief of defense.

In 1977 and 1978, the Derg committed numerous human rights violations during the launch of the Red Terror. Several thousand people – mostly school and university students and young intellectuals who allegedly oppose the Derg – were killed on the streets and in prisons in Addis Ababa and other towns in the center of the country, according to Amnesty International.

The same regime was in power during a drought and famine in the 1980s, which claimed an estimated 800,000 lives.

When the regime fell in 1991, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front moved into the capital Bayeh, now in its 70s, and Tedla, in its early 80s, sought refuge at the Italian embassy in Addis Ababa. Since May 26, 1991, they have been confined within the walls of the compound, the source told CNN.

Their 29-year diplomatic asylum is considered to be the longest and lasts 22 years longer than the well-known one of Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

At least 600 civilians have been killed in the massacre in northern Ethiopia, the justice commission said
They had never had a lawyer, but applied for asylum within the embassy, ​​which was never granted. The Italian embassy, ​​however, accepted the two men because of the country’s opposition to the death penalty.

They ended their days away from the outside world on the small grounds of the building and watched television, the diplomatic source said.

Two other men, Tesfay Gebre Kidan and Hailu Yimenu, also fled to the embassy in 1991. Yimenu committed suicide a few years later, while Kidan died in an accident in 2004. The source told CNN that further details regarding Kidan’s death could not have been released to the press, but said it did not involve Bayeh or Tedla.

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