The historic letter of
In a six page pdf file, Professor Mesfin documented the essence of how the court presided by Adil Ahmed denied the accused from presenting any evidence
to counter the false accusations levied by the prosecutor, and how the court
refused to hear the plea of the accused against brutality by prison guards,
notably against Mulneh Andualem. Remarkably, on June 11, after the accused stood
and demanded that they be heard, the court indicated that it would take a 10
minute recess, but returned after two and half hours to pass its unjust verdict
against the accused. This
I provide a translation of the last paragraph, beginning with the last sentence of the second to the last paragraph.
“Denied of the right to present evidence in defense against false accusations, and based only on false accusations, the accused is found guilty for the first time in the history of Ethiopian formal course proceedings.
The state of the justice process and whom it serves is now
proved. A strong and independent judiciary
is the foundation for developing a credible democratic process. It was because we believed in the protection
of our people from such shameful [court] determinations that we incorporated [a
demand to have an independent judiciary] in our
HG: