Ethiopian major gets death
2005-12-09 12:53
Addis Ababa - The Federal High Court in Addis Ababa has sentenced a former Derg member to death on a series of charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
According to the official Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), Major Melaku Tefera was charged with involvement in the deaths of 971 people and the physical injury of 83 others while he was governor of Gondar Province in northwestern Ethiopia from 1977-1983.
On Friday, the Federal High Court found him guilty and sentenced him to death.
Melaku has appealed against the sentence.
Under Ethiopian law the sentence cannot be implemented until it is approved by the country's head of state.
Most of the deaths attributed to Melaku occurred during the "Red Terror Campaign", from 1977 to 1979, when real or imagined enemies of the Ethiopian Revolution were executed under the Derg regime.
The regime was led by Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam. He has been in exile in Zimbabwe since the fall of his government in 1991.
The trial of over 40 other top Derg officials, the military council that overthrew the Emperor Haile Selassie in a bloodless coup in 1974, is expected to wind up in 2006.
- SAPA