US professor among 5 sentenced to die in Ethiopia

By Samson Haileyesus (AP) and Aaron Maasho (AFP) December 22, 2009

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – An Ethiopian court sentenced five people to death — including an Ethiopian professor teaching at a U.S. university — and 33 to life in prison Tuesday for being members of a terror group and conspiring to assassinate government officials.
Those convicted have been accused of being members of the Ginbot 7 — May 15 in the Ethiopian calendar — which refers to Ethiopia's election day in 2005 when postelection violence killed close to 200 people.
Among those sentenced to death was Berhanu Nega, an exiled opposition leader who was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in 2005. Nega is currently an associate professor of economics at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
Three of the other five sentenced to death are also living in exile outside Ethiopia; one is in custody.
The prosecution asked the court to impose severe penalties because many of the accused were members of the army. Many of those convicted were expected to appeal.
All but two of the defendants in Ethiopian custody have proclaimed their innocence. Two defendants cooperated with the prosecution and were sentenced to 10 years.
Nega and more than 100 other opposition politicians were arrested after the 2005 election and put on trial for treason. Nega and others were pardoned and freed after 20 months, but the government last week revoked Nega's pardon.
[Andargachew Tsige, one of the leaders of Ginbot 7, speaks briefly to the BBC on why it is invalid to appeal the death sentences in a country where there is no rule of law.]
According to a Bucknell University article on Nega, the economics professor was a leader in the democratic opposition in Ethiopia after returning there in the mid-1990s. In 2005, he become the first elected mayor in Ethiopia's history with 75 percent of the vote, but the ruling party declared victory in races throughout the country.
"Thus ended the Ethiopian democratic experiment that had started with such high hopes, leaving the country in the darkness of totalitarian rule," Nega said during a talk on campus last year.
Nega was jailed after the election and released after 20 months in July 2007. Since his release, he has urged the U.S. and other Western countries to back democratic movements in Ethiopia and withdraw support for dictatorships.
Opposition politicians have for months been pointing to signs of increased oppression in Ethiopia, notably the harassment and arrest of thousands of their candidates in 2008's local elections that they believe allowed the ruling party to sweep the elections.
Aaron Maasho, AFP correspondent in Addis, said the defendants' relatives and lawyers said they would appeal the sentences.
"I will appeal, I'm not satisfied with the decision. It's harsh, I hope it will be reversed after we appeal it," said Tidenekyalesh Tesfa, whose client Getu Worku was sentenced to life and had his property confiscated.
The relative of another army officer who was sentenced to life in jail struggled to hold back her tears after the sentences were pronounced.
"It's a pity. There is no justice in Ethiopia... the evidence was incomplete," she told AFP on condition of anonymity. "He served his country, he sacrificed his whole life for the military... but for what?"
The trial, one of the most high-profile in the country's recent history, comes against a tense political backdrop, ahead of general elections scheduled for May next year.
Rights groups have accused Meles' regime of instilling a climate of fear ahead of the polls.
"The spectre of the 2005 crackdown on the opposition and on the independent press is resurfacing in the run-up to the May 2010 general elections," the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a recent statement.
A senior US official also voiced concern last month at what he described as a "reduction in political space and the ability of opposition parties to operate."
Some 200 people died in violence that erupted following the disputed results of the 2005 elections.
Berhanu Nega's now-defunct opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy had won an unprecedented number of seats.