By David McDougall | Globe and Mail
A Canadian citizen imprisoned in Ethiopia for two-and-a-half years, has been convicted by a civilian [kangaroo] court in Addis Ababa on three charges relating to his alleged involvement in an Ethiopian separatist movement.
Bashir Makhtal, a former Toronto resident now in his 40s, is the grandson of one of the founding members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, though he claims he has no connection with the movement.
“He was prepared for it. He was not surprised at all,” said Mr. Makhtal’s lawyer in Ethiopia, Gebreamlak Tekele .
Mr. Makhtal is due to be sentenced on Monday and could face life imprisonment or death, though his lawyer says they plan to appeal the conviction.
Mr. Makhtal was arrested by Kenyan authorities in December, 2006, as he attempted to cross the border from Somalia on a Canadian passport in an effort to escape fighting between Ethiopia and Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts, an Islamist militia.
Mr. Makhtal claims he was in Mogadishu on a business trip, preparing to receive a shipment of used clothing from Dubai.
He was never charged in Kenya. Instead, after several weeks in custody, he was sent to Ethiopia where he essentially disappeared, held incommunicado in solitary confinement and denied consular access for nearly two years.
Pressure from the Canadian government is believed to have helped persuade Ethiopia to give Mr. Makhtal some semblance of a judicial process. But today’s conviction brings to an end a trial that both human rights groups and Mr Makhtal warned would be unfair.
“It’s been a foregone conclusion,” said Lorne Waldman, the Toronto lawyer retained by Mr. Makhtal’s family to represent his case in Canada. “Any independent observer knows that the judicial system in Ethiopia is not independent.”
“The key issue for us now is whether the Canadian government will take appropriate steps to ensure that he is repatriated.”
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