By Joe Michael | Commentary
The Kangaroo court of Ethiopia has delivered yet another unmerited verdict. This time, it is against the most popular singer Teddy Afro, who was falsely, based on the evidence submitted by the prosecutor, accused of a hit and run crime. The singer has been accused of hitting and killing a homeless man and has been imprisoned without a bail for close to a year.
As the trial clearly demonstrated, the prosecutor of the case was unable to prove the crime of the accused without a reasonable doubt. The witness against the accused and the evidence submitted in the trial contradict that the date the reported crime took place and the deceased date of the victim on the hospital death certificate were divergent. Moreover, the accused constitutional rights were violated and some of the evidence that were permitted in the trial were fabricated.
In light of the clear incapability of the prosecutor to prove the accused crimes, the court, with its premeditated plot, gave emphasis to circumstantial evidence, which was false hypothesis submitted by the prosecutor.
The court knows that the accused has neither guilty mind (Mens rea) nor the guilty act (Actus reus) he was falsely accused for was evidently proved. The court knows that the crime was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also knows that more rigorous test was needed to determine whether the evidence submitted by the prosecutor was sufficient to convict the accused.
It is an apparent fact that Teddy’s trial was influenced by politics as he was deprived of his constitutional rights from the very beginning. He was accused and arrested without bail based on fabricated evidence, and now convicted while there is a reasonable doubt. Teddy is known for criticizing the government through his music’s. He was patriot, kind and a loyal citizen. The court had no other cause for the false conviction rather than Teddy’s different political view and patriotism.
What the biased judges did to him, however, is another unambiguous proof that there is no impartial judiciary system in Ethiopia. Obviously, that implies that there is no justice at all.