Former Ethiopian dictator convicted

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 (Addis Ababa):

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was convicted in Addis Ababa on Tuesday of genocide and other charges relating to the deaths of nearly 2,000 people in a bloody campaign known as Red Terror.

Mengistu is living in exile in Zimbabwe and was tried in absentia in a case that has dragged on for 12 years.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has pledged not to deport Mengistu as long as he does not engage in political activity.

Rebels who toppled Mengistu in 1991 were determined to try him, starting planning for trials in Ethiopian courts for those held responsible for human rights abuses almost as soon as they took over.

Public interest

But as the myriad, complex cases dragged on, public interest waned.

Mengistu's trial, which began in 1994, was slowed by requests from both sides for long breaks.

Hundreds of key witnesses have died, further complicating proceedings.

Mengistu was tried along with scores of his former aides for alleged involvement in the killings during the 1977-78 Red Terror campaign.

Mengistu seized power in 1974, when his military junta ended Emperor Haile Selassie's rule in a bloody coup.

Some experts say 150-thousand university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a nationwide purge by Mengistu's Marxist regime.

The exact number of people massacred during the Red Terror campaign is not known.

Ethiopia's courts have convicted 1,018 people since 1994 for participating in the Red Terror, but 6,426 await trial and more than 3-thousand of them, like Mengistu, live in exile.

A total of 106 top officials were originally charged alongside Mengistu, of which 43 have died and 26 have been convicted.

The former dictator and 32 others have been tried in absentia, while 37 have attended the court hearings since the trial began.

Mengistu was deposed in 1991 by rebels led by Meles Zenawi, now Ethiopia's prime minister.

He fled to the protection of Mugabe's authoritarian regime in Zimbabwe, where his army had helped train guerrillas in their struggle for independence from white rule. (AP)