Ethiopia commutes death sentences for top junta men

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia commuted Wednesday death sentences handed down in 2008 to 23 top officials in the former Stalinist junta to life in prison, President Girma Wolde-Giorgis said.
"It has been decided to commute the death sentences of the 23 Derg officials to to life imprisonment," the president said in a statement.
The decision followed an appeal for clemency from leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
The junta, called the Derg, seized power in 1974 when it toppled Emperor Haile Selassie. From 1977 it was headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam, an army lieutenant colonel.
Mengistu and the Derg were in turn toppled in 1991 by a then rebel movement now in power.
Mengistu, who lives in exile in Zimbabwe, was found guilty of genocide in 2006 and sentenced to death in absentia by Ethiopia's Supreme Court in 2008. His sentence has not been reduced.
The 23 were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, notably for a particularly ferocious crackdown against opponents in 1977-1978 known as the Red Terror in which tens of thousands of people were killed or disappeared.
Among the 23 are Legesse Asfaw, a member of the Derg better known as the butcher of Tigray for massacres he carried out in that region, and the former prime minister Fikresellasie Wogderes.
The death sentence is sometimes pronounced in Ethiopia but is seldom applied.