Adil Ahmed, a high court judge, gave life terms to 34 of the 38 defendants, including Hailu Shawl and Bernahu Nega, two senior leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) party. Four other defendants received 18-year jail terms. Prosecutors last week had requested the death penalty.
Abraha Tetemke, the chief prosecutor, said: "According to the country's penal code, maximum punishment should be dealt to parties found guilty of plotting against the constitution." More on AL JazeeraOn Reporters sans frontières we learn: Former guerrilla Zenawi took power in 1991 promising democracy after the dark years of Mengistu Haile Mariam, but he at once set about intimidating the opposition and routinely jailing journalists.
The first multiparty elections in May 2005 raised hopes, but the vote was a fiasco and the opposition took to the streets to protest the result. The army cracked down and in November the government acted to crush what it said was an armed uprising. A dozen newspapers were closed and their editors thrown in prison along with opposition leaders. They were prosecuted for “high treason,” which carries the death penalty. Zenawi claimed he was maintaining public order in the face of subversion and that the opposition and its media were preaching “genocide” against his ethnic group. More
THE BRANDT EQUATION let us know that Meles is married and is a father of three. His hobbies are reading, swimming and tennis ..it really is written on the 21st Century Blueprint for the New Global Economy
See the background of this dictator on Wikipedia