Ethiopian war criminals may leave the Italian embassy after almost 30 years

Ethiopian war criminals may leave the Italian embassy after almost 30 years

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Berhanu Bayeh and Addis Tedla, two senior officials from the former Mengistu military regime in Ethiopia, who had been sentenced to death for war crimes, were brought on parole 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 Union-backed Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, for his participation in the torture and execution of thousands of people, which resulted in genocide.
Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde commuted his death sentences to life imprisonment on December 19. The federal court voted two to one in favor of giving them parole on Christmas Eve, after Ethiopian Attorney General Gedion Timothewos asked for clemency because of his old age.

The two men are now awaiting the official transmission of the sentence from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when they will leave.

Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Emanuela Claudia Del Re thanked Ethiopia for granting parole.

“An old page in history has definitely been turned,” she said. in a tweet on Monday. “Italy and Ethiopia share a long and prosperous future together.”

“Life is a human right – the decision to grant parole to former government officials is in line with human rights obligations and commitments,” said Daniel Bekele, the chief commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, who describes himself as an “independent citizen” institution. “It is also a symbolic indicator of Ethiopia’s commitment to turning a page in one of the saddest chapters in its recent history.”

Mengistu was president of Derg, a communist party that came to power in Ethiopia after a coup d’état in 1974. For a time, Bayeh served as Derg’s foreign minister and Tedla was head of the defense cabinet.

In 1977 and 1978, Derg committed several human rights abuses during what became known as the Red Terror. Several thousand people – mostly students from schools and universities and young intellectuals suspected of opposing Derg – were killed on the streets and in prisons in Addis Ababa and other cities in the center of the country, according to Amnesty International.

The same regime was under control during a drought and famine in the 1980s, which claimed about 800,000 lives.

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

His 29-year diplomatic asylum stay is considered to be the longest, lasting 22 years longer than Julian Assange’s much-publicized stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

At least 600 civilians were killed in the massacre in northern Ethiopia, the rights commission said
They never had a lawyer, but they applied for asylum inside the embassy, ​​which was never granted. However, the Italian embassy accepted the two men because of the country’s opposition to the death penalty.

They spent their days isolated from the outside world walking the small grounds of the complex and watching television, said the diplomatic source.

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

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