Canadian in Ethiopian jail to get lawyer, envoy says Canada's National Newspaper
06 August, 2008
The Harper government is satisfied with assurances that a Canadian imprisoned in Ethiopia for 18 months will be allowed legal representation and continued consular visits, Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Minister said yesterday.
Mr. Obhrai raised the case of Bashir Makhtal, a dual Canadian-Ethiopian citizen, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in an official visit to Addis Ababa last weekend.
"I am satisfied with the assurances," Mr. Obhrai said yesterday in a telephone interview from Calgary. "He will have access to his lawyer, which should speed up the trial."
Supporters of Mr. Makhtal and some opposition MPs have been pressing the Harper government for months to intervene on his behalf. Until last month, Canadian diplomats had been barred from visiting Mr. Makhtal, an ethnic Somali who came to Canada as a refugee in 1991 and became a citizen three years later.
Since 2001, Mr. Makhtal has lived in Kenya and was trying to establish a used-clothing business in strife-torn Somalia when Ethiopian troops invaded and ousted an Islamic regime from Mogadishu two years ago.
Mr. Makhtal was arrested at the Somali-Kenyan border in December of 2006 and forcibly put on a plane back to Somalia. Ethiopian authorities took him to Addis Ababa. Since early 2007, Mr. Makhtal has been in prison in Addis Ababa and his Canadian lawyer, Lorne Waldman, claims he was forced to "tape a false confession."
Mr. Obhrai has taken a personal interest in the convoluted cases of several Canadian dual nationals imprisoned abroad. Last weekend's visit was his second to Ethiopia in the past few months. Although bilateral relations and aid projects were on his agenda, pressing Mr. Makhtal's case with Prime Minister Zenawi pushes the envelope of intervention given that Mr. Makhtal is also an Ethiopian citizen.
Ethiopia regards the case as one involving national security, noting that Mr. Makhtal is the grandson of one of the founders of the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front.