Ethiopian war criminals able to leave Italian embassy after nearly 30 years

Italian vice-minister for foreign affairs, Emanuela Claudia Del Re, gave thanks to Ethiopia for granting the probation.

“Life is a human right – the decision to grant former government officials probation is in tune with obligations and commitments on human rights,” said Daniel Bekele, the chief commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commision, which describes itself as an “independent national” institution. “It is also a symbolic indicator of Ethiopia’s commitment to turning a page on one of the saddest chapters in its recent history.”

Mengistu was chairman of the Derg, a communist party that rose to power in Ethiopia after a 1974 coup. For a time Bayeh served as the Derg’s foreign minister and Tedla was defense chief of staff.

In 1977 and 1978, the Derg committed numerous human rights abuses during what was known as the Red Terror. Several thousand people — mostly school and university students and young intellectuals suspected of opposing the Derg — were killed on the streets and in prisons in Addis Ababa and other towns in the center of the country, according to Amnesty International.

When the regime fell in 1991, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front moved in on the capital, Bayeh, now in his 70s, and Tedla, his early 80s, sought refuge in the Italian embassy in Addis Ababa. Since May 26, 1991, they have been confined inside the walls of the compound, the source told CNN.

Their 29-year diplomatic asylum stay is considered to be the longest, lasting a full 22 years more than the much publicized one of Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Two other men, Tesfay Gebre Kidan and Hailu Yimenu, also took refuge at the embassy in 1991. Yimenu committed suicide a few years later, while Kidan died in an accident in 2004. The source told CNN that further detail surrounding Kidan’s death could not be released to the press, but said it did not involve either Bayeh or Tedla.