Ethiopian war criminals are able to leave the Italian embassy after almost 30 years

Behanu Baih and Addis Tedla, two senior officials of Ethiopia’s former Mangistu military regime who were sentenced to death for war crimes, were granted probation by an Ethiopian federal court.

He was executed in absentia in 2008 along with former Soviet-backed Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Hale Miriam for participating in the torture and execution of thousands of people for sailing.

Ethiopian President Sahel-Work Zevade commuted his death sentence to life in prison on December 19. A federal court voted two-to-one in favor of granting him parole on Christmas Eve, after Ethiopia’s attorney general, Gadian Timothy, requested a delay. Their old age.

Emanuela Claudia del Rey, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, thanked Ethiopia for granting probation.

“Life is a human right – the decision to grant probation to former government officials is in line with human rights obligations and commitments,” said Daniel Beckley, chief commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, describing himself as an “independent national”. Organization. “It is also a symbolic sign of a commitment to turn the page on one of the most tragic chapters in Ethiopia’s recent history.”

Mangistu was chairman of the Communist Party of Europe, which came to power in Ethiopia after the 1974 uprising. For a time, Baihe served as Drug’s foreign minister and Tedla was chief of staff for defense.

In 1977 and 1978, Darge committed numerous human rights violations during what became known as Red Terror. According to Amnesty International, several thousand people – mostly school and university students and young intellectuals suspected of opposing the drug – were killed on the streets and in prisons in Addis Ababa and other towns in the center of the country.

When the regime collapsed in 1991, and the Tigre People’s Liberation Front now advanced toward the capital, Bayah, in the 1970s, Tedla took refuge in the Italian embassy in Addis Ababa in the early 1980s. As of May 26, 1991, they have been confined within the walls of the compound, the source told CNN.

Julian Assange’s 29-year-old diplomatic asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London is considered the longest.

Tesfe Gabre Kidden and Helu Yimenu, two other men, also sought refuge at the embassy in 1991. Yimenu committed suicide a few years later, when Kidden died in an accident in 2004. The source told CNN there could be no further details surrounding Kidden’s death. Published for the press, but said it does not include Bayah or Tedla.