Ethiopia says HRW report "crammed with fabrications" Ethiopia said a government-funded probe had found no evidence to support reports by a rights grou

Ethiopia said on Wednesday a government-funded probe had found no evidence to support reports by a rights group that its military committed war crimes during a campaign against rebels in the eastern Ogaden region.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued two reports in June that it said documented attacks on civilians in the arid region; one based on witness accounts and another on satellite imagery showing burnt-out villages during a year-long military offensive.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government accuses the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) of being fighters supported by arch-foe and neighbour Eritrea.

It launched the offensive in April 2007 after ONLF rebels attacked Chinese-run oil fields in the region also known as Somali, killing more then 70 people.

But Ethiopia said its seven-man team had proved that the HRW reports were fabricated.

"They found villages untouched that HRW alleged were burnt by Ethiopian National Defence Forces. Many of the names of those allegedly killed proved simply fictitious nor had populations been forcibly relocated," the team said in a report.

"The investigation also found no evidence to support HRW's allegations of systematic war crimes or crimes against humanity," it added.

The U.S.-based group had accused the government of limiting access to the region and had hit out at Western donors for failing to condemn war crimes on the mainly ethnically Somali people of the region.

But the two-month probe found that populations said to have been forcibly relocated were found in their original homes, while people who were allegedly tortured and killed were found alive and well.

Villagers and elders also denied allegations of extra-judicial killings, rape or torture by the security forces, the report said.

"The investigation demonstrated clearly that HRW perhaps unwittingly had allowed itself to be used as a propaganda tool by the ONLF terrorist organization which it has clearly romanticised.