Nine years into the trial of former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and his regime, defence lawyers finally opened their defence yesterday against the 209 charges of crimes against humanity during what was called the Red Terror in the late 1970s. The trial of Mengistu and 69 of his aides has become a lesson in the challenges of resurrecting a local justice system to prosecute crimes committed by a former dictator and his government, and how local courts can’t always cope. While no one knows for sure how many people Mengistu’s Marxist regime, which ruled between 1974 and 1991, killed during the purge of suspected opponents, experts estimate the number to be 150,000. Human Rights Watch called the Red Terror “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed”. Full Story
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