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Ethiopian
Court Convicts Anti-Poverty Campaigners |
ActionAid
International USA
Today Ethiopia's Federal High Court
convicted anti-poverty campaigners Daniel
Bekele and Netsanet Demissie, the last
remaining defendants in a trial in which
they were charged along with 129 others,
including leading members of the opposition
Coalition for Unity and Democracy.
The verdict was met with shock and dismay by
ActionAid, the international anti-poverty
agency which employed Daniel Bekele and
supported Netsanet Demissie's Organisation
for Social Justice in Ethiopia.
All the other defendants were acquitted, or
else convicted, sentenced and pardoned,
several months ago. But Daniel Bekele and
Netsanet Demissie refused to sign an
admission of guilt in return for a possible
pardon. Instead they persisted with their
legal defence, seeking to refute the
allegation that in 2005 they were part of a
conspiracy to foment political violence and
guilty of, as the charge sheet put it, 'the
crime of outrage against the constitution
and the constitutional order'. This charge
was dismissed, but they were found guilty on
a lesser charge of incitement.
After leaving the court, ActionAid's chief
executive Ramesh Singh said: "This is a
terrible shock and disappointment to me
personally, to ActionAid, and to Daniel and
Netsanet's families and friends across the
world. But we will continue to stand by our
two brave colleagues. We will be with them
if they seek to continue their legal
struggle in the appeal court, and we remain
hopeful that they will ultimately establish
their innocence."
The two men have already spent more than two
years in custody. During that time they went
as far as the Supreme Court in their
repeated but unsuccessful efforts to obtain
bail.
The court will deliver its sentence on
Wednesday 26 December.
NOTES TO EDITORS
A timeline of the trial to date, and a
collection of trial documents can be found
at www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=561
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