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26 October 2006
KALITI, Ethiopia -- Ethiopian opposition figures accused of plotting a coup after disputed elections last year disparaged the electoral process and urged supporters to arm themselves, a court heard Wednesday.
The first prosecution witnesses to appear in the much-delayed trial said that top leaders of the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) had primed the party for revolt by questioning the results of the May 15 polls.
Two of the eight witnesses, all of whom were granted anonymity by the court sitting here south of Addis Ababa, identified themselves as party members who had been present at CUD meetings where leaders said that the elections were rigged.
Others, identified as civilians, said that they helped police recover documents from the homes and offices of CUD leaders that showed that the opposition was trying to foment rebellion and had made a hit list of government officials to kill.
"Our members must arm themselves with grenades and things like that," one witness testified, reading from a text allegedly found during a search of the home of senior CUD official Getachew Shiferaw.
The witness, presented only as a 41-year-old businessman, said that a hit list of six government officials, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, had also been recovered at Getechew's house.
The allegations prompted a firm denial from the CUD official, one of 111 defendants - 101 individuals, four political parties, and six newspapers - present at the trial. Twenty-five others are being tried in absentia.
"You are lying to the court that you are a businessman," Getachew said. "I know you from the prime minister's office ... you are working with the security of the prime minister," he said.
Various defendants are charged with a variety of crimes including treason, genocide, and conspiracy, some of which could draw the death penalty on conviction.
The case has drawn deep concern from donors and criticism from rights groups that maintain that the government is trying to stifle dissent in the wake of post-election unrest.
Protests against alleged massive fraud in the polls sparked two explosions of deadly violence in the capital and other cities June and November in which at least 193 people were killed, according to a suppressed parliamentary report.
Most of the victims were killed by police in what the ex-vice-chairman of the inquiry panel, who is now in hiding in Europe, has called a "massacre."
Prosecutors plan to call 316 witnesses in the trial and after Wednesday's testimony, High Court Justice Adiel Amin adjourned the proceedings until Friday.
Source: www.metimes.com