May 31, 2004,
Zimbabwe should hand over ousted Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile
Mariam to stand trial for genocide and human rights violations in the Horn of
Africa country, a top Ethiopian diplomat has told a newspaper.
Mengistu is being tried in absentia with 37 former top soldiers accused of
genocide during his 17-year rule, which ended in 1991 when he was toppled and
fled to Zimbabwe.
"It is in the interest of the Ethiopian people that this criminal be returned to
be tried in Ethiopia," Duna Mufti, Ethiopia's ambassador to Zimbabwe, said in an
interview with weekly newspaper Capital, which hit newsstands this
morning.
"For sure the government of Zimbabwe is aware of the fact that the Ethiopian
people are looking forward to the day Mengistu will be handed over to Ethiopia,"
he added.
Suspects could face the death penalty if convicted in the trial which began in
December 1994. Since then more than 5 000 people have been tried or await trial
in Ethiopia on charges of murdering thousands of people during the Marxist
dictator's iron-fisted rule.
In a separate report, the newspaper accused Mengistu of unleashing a reign of
terror, mass murder, torture and killings.
It said between 100 and 150 people were being killed every night in the capital
Addis Ababa during the "Red Terror" purges of the late 1970s.
"Victims bodies were left lying on the streets and relatives were forced to pay
for the bullets that caused the death of their loved ones," the paper said.
"Mengistu's security forces tortured political prisoners, dipping bodies in hot
oil, raping and inserting bottles and heated metals in bodies of female
prisoners," the paper said.
The charges against former officials languishing in prison for the last 13 years
include the killing of more than 1 000 people including Emperor Haile Selassie,
who was dethroned in 1974 by Mengistu's junta known as the Dergue.
Human rights groups have expressed alarm at the time the trial is taking. The
prosecution says the complex nature of the evidence has prolonged the case. -
Reuters
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