On Thursday, Ethiopian court decided to release Derg officials who have been sheltering in the Italian embassy for the past 30 years, according to the State news agency.
Berhanu Bayeh and Addis Tedla sought safety after the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front army entered the capital on May 28, 1991.
The 82-year-old Bayeh served as Foreign Minister from 1986 to 1989, and the 74-year-old Addis, was the chief of General Staff from 1989 to 1991.
When military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam fled Ethiopia in 1991 and the Derg regime fell, four ministers took refuge inside the Embassy. The other two, former acting Prime Minister Hailu Yimenu and Military Commander in Eritrea, Tesfaye Gebre Kidan, have died. Haile is reported to have committed suicide in 1993 and Tesfaye is rumoured to have died after being hit over the head with a bottle in 2004.
Fifteen years into their stay, the surviving pair were sentenced to death in absentia for their role in killings committed under the Derg regime that ruled the country following the 1974 revolution which ousted Emperor Haile Selassie’s imperial government.
In 2011, death sentences for 23 Derg officials were commuted to life imprisonment. Despite repeated requests from the Ethiopian government, Italian authorities refused to hand over the officials.
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