Ethiopians are awaiting a verdict in the marathon genocide trial of former dictator Mengistu Haile Miriam, who is accused of a plethora of brutal atrocities during his 17-year regime.
Ethiopia’s Federal High Court is expected to deliver its ruling on Tuesday after a more than a decade of what has been one of Africa’s longest criminal proceedings in which the exiled Mengistu has been tried in absentia.
“The Mengistu case was very big, there were many victims around the country and the investigation took a long time,” said special prosecutor Josef Kiros, who opened the state’s case when the trial began in December 1994.
“It took three years just to gather the evidence,” he told Agence France-Presse, noting that the court heard testimony from 730 witnesses and has seen more than 3 000 documents placed into evidence. “The nature of the case makes it very long.”
Exiled in Zimbabwe since his 1991 ouster, the ex-Marxist dictator is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity alongside 72 co-defendants, 26 of whom have also been tried in absentia. Only 35 are expected in court on Tuesday.
The charges relate to atrocities committed during the 1977-78 “Red Terror” period in which tens of thousands of people were killed or disappeared in Mengistu’s bid to turn Ethiopia into a Soviet-style workers’ state.
The top leaders of the co-called “Derg” (Committee) regime are also accused of the murders of Emperor Haile Selassie, whom they toppled in a 1974 coup, and Orthodox Patriarch Abuna Tefelows.
The evidence against Mengistu, who is approaching 70 and living relatively undisturbed in Zimbabwe despite efforts to have him extradited, includes execution orders and video footage of assassinations and torture of detainees.
About 5 200 lower-ranking ex-soldiers and communist militants are facing similar charges in a series of other slow-running and oft-delayed trials in which verdicts are sporadically announced.
The court adjourned the Mengistu case in November and said it would announce its verdict on May 23, but defence lawyers maintain there is a chance the ruling could be postponed.
“There might be a new adjournment as the final arguments of the defence have only been submitted last week to the prosecution,” said defence attorney Abebe Worku.
Initially due to be finished in 2004, the Mengistu trial has dragged on because of logistical delays that some fear may render the verdict meaningless to many Ethiopians who suffered during the Derg’s 1974-1991 rule.
“There is a certain indifference among Ethiopians, apart from those who have been closely affected,” said noted Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde.
“One reason is the length, but these crimes also belong to the past now,” he told AFP. “So much has happened since.”
Others said Tuesday’s expected verdict will cap a significant legal achievement by the government, which was determined to put on what would be seen as a fair trial, setting it apart from the regime it replaced.
“By the time it started, the new government had to build a different image and show they wanted to abide by the rule of law,” said one legal observer in Addis Ababa. “That’s why there was this trial.”
“It is a trial of record that has been conducted nearly without any international assistance,” said a western diplomat, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
If found guilty of the charges, all the defendants face life in prison or the death penalty under Ethiopian law. Some officials have in the past made public appeals for clemency, though not Mengistu.
Such appeals have not so far succeeded, and in the last verdict in a Red Terror trial in early December 2005, a former member of the Derg, Melaku Tefera, known as the “Butcher of Gondar”, was convicted and sentenced to death.
Melaku, who was found guilty of the murders of 971 people in northern Gondar province, was among 33 former officials in Mengistu’s government to have sought forgiveness in a letter published in a local newspaper in 2004.
In August 2005, two former Derg officials were sentenced to death for the “inhuman persecution” of dissidents, while eight lower-ranking ex-members of the regime were jailed for terms ranging from 10 years to life. — AFP