Former chairman of Kinijit North America chairman Shaleka Yosef Yazew has abruptly dropped his defamation lawsuit against Kinijit NA auditor and other individuals following a conference with the defendant’s lawyer.
Kinijit North America is a U.S.-based support group of Ethiopia’s major opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (Kinijit) during the 2005 elections in Ethiopia.
Last week, Shaleka Yosef Yazew and his wife went to Ato Tesfai Asamaw attorney’s office accompanied by their attorney to take a deposition under oath. When it was time to do so, he surprised everyone including his attorney refusing to proceed. Instead, he chose to drop the case and walked away pretending to be sick.
The Shaleka knows that the auditor is a Certified Public Accountant who has done his homework in preparing all the necessary evidences to not only defeat him in court and make him pay for his legal expenses, but also further expose him to the public. It seems that the shaleka’s intention was to settle the case in a face saving way for himself, not to punish the auditor for his alleged defamation.
Ato Tesfai told Ethiopian Review that had the shaleka “continued with the proceeding, it could have put himself in a series legal trouble.”
Shaleka Yoseph had included Ethiopian Review as as accomplice in his initial complaint. He and his blind defenders had repeatedly threatened Ethiopian Review publisher with a lawsuit.
As part of his retreat, the shaleka was asked by Ato Tesfai to go public and ask for forgiveness of his community via any available media.
Ethiopian Review had previously reported that Shaleka Yosef and his cronies had pocked several hundred thousand dollars that belonged to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (Kinijit). Under his watch, over 2 million dollars that have been collected from Kinijit supporters in the United Sates have been squandered.
When Kinijit chairman Hailu Shawel was released from jail in Ethiopia, he had received a complete report about the corruption of Shaleqa Yoseph. Instead of taking appropriate measures to recover the stolen funds, Ato Hailu chose to try to cover up the massive corruption, which soiled his own name as well. Shaleqa Yoseph’s corruption, and Ato Hailu Shawel’s attempt to cover it up, was the main reason for the split up of the Kinijit top leadership and later the party itself. These two corrupt politicians and their cohorts should never be allowed to hold any public office.