Ethiopia’s attorney general on Monday accused the country’s intelligence service of orchestrating a bombing of a pro-government rally to intensify ethnic tensions and discredit popular support for the reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Attorney general Berhanu Tsegaye also accused intelligence services of gruesome human rights abuses including rape, murder and castration, and laid separate accusations of corruption at the feet of Metec, a military-run conglomerate.
Kinfe Dagnew, the former head of Metec and a major general in the Ethiopian army was arrested on the border with Sudan, the state-run broadcaster said on Wednesday. Mr Kinfe was ousted from his post in Metec in April.
Metec had received $2 billion of contracts without the proper bidding process over six years, Mr Berhanu said without naming the international firms involved.
Dozens of intelligence service officials were heard in court on Monday on the accusations of human rights abuses and orchestrating the attack.
The country’s attorney general said “senior leadership of the national security agency” intelligence services told members of the Oromo ethnic group, of which Prime Minister Abiy is a part of, to attack him at a rally.
“The evidence we gathered shows that the senior leadership of the national security agency instructed Oromos to carry out the attack because it would mean that the prime minister – an Oromo – was killed by Oromos,” the attorney general told a press conference.
“It would (also) give the impression that he is not endorsed by the Oromo population.”