For Temesgen Yilma, a businessman known for running Yilma Butchery, a popular eatery serving raw beef in Adama (Nazareth) before opening an eponymous Yilma Restaurant in Addis Abeba, the past half dozen years felt like slow motion. Every now and then, he shuffled into a packed courtroom to answer charges that seemed to multiply each time prosecutors amended their brief.

On paper, he and six codefendants, among them Azeb Mihretab, an Ethiopian American who runs JJ Property Management from North America, were accused of money laundering, breach of trust, illicit banking and an improvised list of financial crimes. In practice, Temesgen felt they were fighting for something less abstract: the right to reclaim money, which he believed they had already poured into "a debt swamped company," Cosmo Trading Plc.

Three weeks ago, Justices of the Federal Supreme Court set the final period on the longest-running white collar case, throwing out every count and confirming an earlier acquittal by judges at the Federal High Court.

“Justice, however late, will find its way around,” Temesgen said, calling the judgment “a long overdue vindication.”

The ruling erased pending jail terms and travel restrictions, but it did not erase the bitterness that had grown on both sides of the row.

Cosmo Trading owns a seven story glass and concrete block near Wello Sefer Roundabout on Africa Avenue (Bole Road), leased to the Chinese run OneHau Hotel. In July 2017, Azeb and her firm acquired 19,900 shares from majority shareholder Haileyesus Mengistu at 1,000 Br par value, transferring 19.9 million Br. They acquired 100 additional shares from two minority shareholders. Part of the consideration, court records show, was the commercial property that bankers pegged at 50 million Br. The deal, registered before a notary and witnessed by lawyers, looked routine enough until relations between buyer and seller soured within months.

Haileyesus, a former leather exporter turned property owner, later told federal officials the share transfer had been extorted. He claimed Azeb’s entourage had muscled its way into the negotiations, subjected him to “duress and physical harassment,” and walked off with corporate documents. According to his complaint, Cosmo Trading’s new owners then used the company as a funnel, drawing bank loans in the company's name, siphoning the cash to related entities, and laundering a portion through the parallel forex market.

He wrote to then Attorney General Adanech Abiebie, now mayor of Addis Abeba, pleading for help, an unusual step that pushed the affair into criminal territory.

In 2019, state prosecutors filed a 29 page charge sheet naming four individuals, Azeb, Temesgen, Mesfin Asmamaw, Cosmo Trading’s former general manager, and an associate, as well as three companies, JJ Property, TTH Trading and Boston Real Estate.

Prosecutors rewrote their brief three times to stay within the evolving penal code. They charged that 61 million Br was taken as working capital loan and a 10 million Br short term facility from Awash Bank; 21 million Br applied to clear Cosmo Trading’s old debts; 32.5 million Br routed to JJ Property; seven million Birr to Boston Real Estate; and 16 million Br covering TTH’s liabilities. They accused Temesgen of pocketing 14.4 million Br in rent from the hotel and another 1.4 million Br from selling a grader, a construction machine.

A separate file alleged that four of the defendants ran an underground remittance service, swapping Birr in Addis Abeba for foreign currency parked in Europe and the U.S.

Defence lawyers denied every allegation, calling the money movements “ordinary internal transfers of a company drowning in more than 40 million Br of legacy debt.” They cited an earlier civil judgment that upheld the share sale as valid and appealed to judges that the prosecution was bound to prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Federal High Court panel — Judges Adem Seid, Yenenesh Bahiru and Imiru Tolera — found the defence argument persuasive. On April 16 this year, they dismissed the first count, a compound allegation of breach of trust and money laundering, before asking the defence to present a single exhibit, saying prosecutors had not even shown the existence of a predicate offence. The second count, unauthorised banking and illegal remittance, collapsed when bank statements showed that the loans from Awash Bank had been used to pay overdue suppliers long before the disputed share transfer.

The three remaining counts fell in sequence.

Outrage was immediate.

“I was robbed of my right and property,” said Haileyesus, vowing to appeal.

Under legal procedure, criminal appeals move first from the Federal High Courts to the Supreme Court; beyond that lies the Cassation Bench, a five-justice panel that only reviews errors of law. Haileyesus filed petitions in both venues and launched a parallel request to merge the criminal and civil tracks, arguing that contradictory findings on the share transfer had sown confusion.

While the criminal case grabbed headlines, a companion civil suit churned quietly.

In 2019, Azeb asked the High Court to compel Cosmo Trading’s shareholders, mainly Haileyesus, to register the share transfer and hand over the minutes book, tax records and board resolutions, which she said proved her majority stake. Haileyesus counter sued, insisting he had signed under threat and claimed never to have received the full 19.9 million Br. The High Court initially sided with him, voiding the sale.

Azeb appealed and won at the Supreme Court, which reinstated the deal after finding gaps in the alleged duress and noting that some tax clearances were missing, a clerical oversight the judges called curable.

That legal whiplash drew attention at higher levels of government. In 2021, intervention from high offices urged both parties to accept mediation. A committee of well known business figures, including Degfe Bula; Biniam Bidawi, major shareholder of Zablon Rea lEstate; and Eskender Desta, promoter and shareholder of Habesha Cement S.C.; as well as Solomon Mequria and Endris Ibrahim, both businessmen, met the adversaries for weeks.

Talks collapsed when Haileyesus declined to concede ownership. With mediation dead, prosecutors pressed on.