Four members of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) have been sentenced to death for mass murder committed in Ethiopia in 1992, reports said on Friday.
The Fifth Criminal Bench of the Federal High Court in Addis Ababa found three men and a woman guilty as charged and sentenced them to death for their active involvement, individually and collectively, in the killings of 207 ethnic Amharas rounded up from various localities in Eastern and Western Hararghe provinces in
eastern Ethiopia.
Two other members of the OLF, a man and a woman, were also sentenced to 25 years and 20 years imprisonment respectively for involvement in the same crimes, the Amharic language daily Addis Zemen reported.
The killings were committed weeks after the OLF left the then Ethiopian transitional government in July 1992 over policy differences. The victims were all ethnic Amharas, whom the OLF suspected of being supporters of rival political organisations.
During the summer of 1992, government forces defeated the OLF when it refused to disarm its fighters and instead engaged in armed resistance. The OLF leadership then fled the country.
The OLF was part of the coalition of guerrilla fighters which overthrew military rule in Ethiopia. It demanded greater autonomy for the Oromo people, the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. – Sapa-DPA