From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Feb 06 2009 - 14:25:16 EST
Zimbabwe opposition doubts Mengistu extradition
Fri Feb 6, 2009 8:25am EST
HARARE, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition said on Friday it doubted
its unity government with President Robert Mugabe would extradite Ethiopia's
former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, who has asylum there.
Mengistu, called the "Butcher of Addis Ababa" by his enemies, was driven
from power in 1991. He was sentenced to death in absentia last year.
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has agreed
to join a government with Mugabe, said it would seriously consider
extraditing Mengistu if it were forming a government by itself.
"But what we are going to have is a government of national unity, and
decisions there will have to be reached through some consensus and I don't
know whether that's going to be possible," said MDC spokesman Nelson
Chamisa.
The extent of the MDC's influence in the new administration remains unclear.
The Ethiopian government has long called for Mengistu's extradition, but
Mugabe's government has refused that.
He was sentenced to death in absentia in May 2008 by Ethiopia's Supreme
Court. It found him guilty of genocide arising from the thousands of
killings during his 17-year rule that included famine, war and the "Red
Terror" purges of his suspected opponents.
Yoseph Kiros, the special prosecutor during the trial of Mengistu and other
senior officers, welcomed any chance that prospects for extraditing Mengistu
could have improved. He said any such decision by Zimbabwe "would bestow
great honour on that country." (Reporting by Harare bureau and Tsegaye
Tadesse in Addis Ababa; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Matthew
Tostevin)
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