Top Federal Officials Absent from Testimony in Tiret Affair

Two top federal government officials and a former Prime Minister called to testify before a court in Bahir Dar made a no show up this morning. Called by the defense team of Bereket Simon and Tadesse Kassa, also former senior officials, they were among the nine witnesses to testify on a legal battle involving alleged corruption cases.

Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, Gedu Andargachew, minister of Foreign Affairs, and Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister, were summoned by judges of the Amhara Regional State Supreme Court as witnesses today, January 13, 2020. However, all three of them did not appear before the court.

Gedu faxed an appeal to the court attributing his absence to his travel to Washington, D.C., where he is due to attend a foreign ministers meeting on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). However, Demeke and Hailemariam failed to appear before the court despite served with legal notice.

Bereket and Tadesse, who had served as chairman of the board and a CEO, respectively, have faced four counts of corruption charges, beginning last April. They are accused of misappropriations of funds in relation to Dashen Brewery's share sales and investment Tiret Corporate made into dVentus Wind Technologies.

Their defence lawyer listed nine witnesses for both the Dashen Brewery and the dVentus Wind Technologies cases, and two of the witnesses were due to testify on both cases, today. Along with the federal officials, Million Assefa, a lawyer; Yohannes Woldegebriel, former public prosecutor; Tekeste Gebru, a partner at HST Consulting; and, Wondwessen Kebede, one of Tiret's founding executives were called to testify by the defense team.