The Federal Attorney General, Getachew Ambaye, announced today that the government of Ethiopia has given an order to terminate a total of 528 ongoing cases involving politicians and other suspects on federal and Southern Regional State levels. This came following the recent decision by the Central Committee of the EPRDF which was communicated to the public by chairs of the four sister parties in the front.
The promise to release politicians in detention and to terminate ongoing charges came to “widen the political space” in the country, according to Hailemariam Dessalegn.
Accordingly, 413 cases were selected from the Southern Regional State while the rest 115 cases were from the federal.
According to Getachew, people who are not suspected of murder, bodily injuries, destruction of infrastructure and those who did not try to oust the constitution and the constitutional order by force were eligible to see their charges dropped.
Getachew also said that a task force has been setup to identify cases in other regions which would be eligible to the same treatment. The detainees whose charges are going to be terminated will be released from prisons within two days after going through a two-day rehabilitation training program, he noted.
The work of the task force will continue for the coming two months and there will be others whose charges will be dropped, the Attorney General added.
