Ethiopia’s former ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam was found guilty in absentia of genocide on Tuesday at the end of a 12-year trial over his bloody rule.
Mengistu, who now lives in Zimbabwe, was accused with top members of his military government of killing thousands during a 17-year rule that began with the toppling of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and included war, purges and famine.
”Members of the Derg [Mengistu’s junta] who are present in court today [Tuesday] and those who are being tried in absentia have conspired to destroy a political group and kill people with impunity,” presiding Judge Medhen Kiros told the court.
The genocide verdict, which carries a death sentence, was passed by two votes to one on the three-judge panel.
Mengistu was ousted by guerrillas led by now Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and in 1991 fled to Zimbabwe, where he leads a luxurious though reclusive life.
He was tried in absentia in Addis Ababa with 73 others, including former Prime Minister Fikre Selassie Wogderesse and former Vice-President Fissiha Desta.
Forty officials are in jail while 27 were tried in absentia. A few have died since proceedings began in 1992 and the trial formally started in 1994.
In the 1977/78 ”Red Terror” campaign, the most notorious purge, suspected opponents were executed by garrotting or shooting. Their bodies were then tossed into the streets.
Many Ethiopians hope the verdict, postponed from May, will close the door on one of the country’s darkest periods.
”Mengistu sought to right the wrongs made by his feudal predecessors but in the end he committed far greater wrongs than they did,” businessman Ephraim Zwede said.
Strangling the emperor
The most prominent victim Mengistu is accused of killing was Emperor Haile Selassie, said to have been strangled in bed and secretly buried under a latrine in his palace.
According to prosecution charges, the former officials also killed more than 1 000 people, including the execution of 60 top officials, ministers and royal family members by firing squad.
Witnesses have said family members who went to morgues to collect bodies of loved ones were asked to pay for bullets that killed them. Witness Gizaw Tefera said soldiers who killed his father cut his head off and offered it for auction at a market.
”No one wanted to buy my father’s head,” he said in 2000.
An Argentine forensic expert said some remains exhumed from mass graves showed victims were killed by garrotting.
”We found green nylon ropes knotted tight around their necks,” forensic expert Mercedes Doreth said in 2002.
For months in 1984, Mengistu denied that famine was ravaging Ethiopia’s north and aid workers have recalled how he flew in planeloads of whisky to celebrate the anniversary of his revolution. One million people starved to death.
Mengistu and his former officials face sentencing later in the month. They could be given the death penalty for genocide, which Ethiopian law defines as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups.
Human rights groups expressed concern at the trial’s length, but the prosecution says the complex nature of evidence, including signed execution orders, videos of torture sessions and personal testimonies, was what delayed the verdict.
Zimbabwe on Tuesday ruled out handing over Mengistu.
His army helped train Mugabe’s guerrillas in their fight against white minority rule. — Reuters, AFP