BRONWEN ROBERTS, Johannesburg | Wednesday 12.45pm.
FORMER Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, wanted by Addis Ababa on charges of genocide, left South Africa before a formal request for his extradition had been received, a presidential aide said on Wednesday.
Mengistu travelled to South Africa last month from his home in exile in Zimbabwe for heart treatment in a Johannesburg clinic.
South Africa received a request from Ethiopia to extradite the former dictator through its embassy in Addis Ababa late on Friday, according to presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana.
But Mengistu had left the country by then, Mankahlana said. He said that the 62-year-old former dictator had left South Africa last week but could not say on which day.
“He has left the country. I don’t know where he has gone,” he said. “Mengistu came to South Africa as a private citizen. He came and he left.”
The South African government has been criticised for allowing Mengistu to undergo treatment here when he is wanted in his country on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
South Africa has no extradition agreement with Ethiopia and has defended its decision to allow the dictator medical treatment here as “humane.”
Mengistu ruled Ethiopia for 17 years after overthrowing Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and is wanted for the murder of thousands of opponents of his Marxist regime during its so-called “Red Terror” campaign of 1977 and 1978.
He is being tried in absentia for the crimes. — AFP