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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
Two senior officials from Ethiopia’s former military regime who were refugees for 29 years at the Italian embassy in the capital Addis Ababa were released on probation on Thursday in the longest diplomatic asylum saga in history.
Berhanu Bayeh, 82, served as foreign minister from 1986 to 1989, while Addis Tedla, 74, served as chief of staff from 1989 until the rebel forces of the now-defunct Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front They captured the capital and overthrew the military regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam on May 28, 1991.
The couple was convicted of genocide in absentia in 2006 and sentenced to death for their role in the mass killings of Mengistu opponents.
Ethiopia’s Federal Court said Thursday they were pardoned and free to leave the premises, the Ethiopian state news agency reported.
Dramatic saga
The longest diplomatic asylum saga, which had witnessed a suicide, an alleged murder and a diplomatic dispute between Ethiopia and Italy, began when Bayeh, Tedla and other high-ranking officials of the military regime entered the premises of the Italian embassy a day before the fall of the capital.
The other notable officials were Lieutenant General Tesfaye Gebre Kidan and Hailu Yimenu. Gebre Kidan was defense minister and then became president for a week after Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he still lives in exile.
Yimenu was acting prime minister and commander of the army in Eritrea. He left the premises and committed suicide outside the embassy a month later.
Gebre Kidan had bitter relations with Bayeh. In June 2004, during a fight, Bayeh allegedly hit Gebre Kidan on the head with a bottle and killed him.
Throughout the protection, the Ethiopian government had been repeatedly demanding the surrender of the surviving couple. However, the Italian government had refused to comply with his demand, prompting a diplomatic dispute.
The second longest known case of diplomatic immunity, lasting around 15 years, was that of Jozsef Mindszenty, the head of the Catholic Church in Hungary.
The cardinal, who opposed the intervention of Soviet troops in his country and feared for his life, applied for asylum at the US embassy in Budapest in 1956. He left the embassy in 1971 and went into exile in Austria.
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