Lawyer demands answers about Canadian detained in Ethiopia without charge

May 21, 2007
Debra Black
Staff Reporter

A leading Canadian human rights and immigration lawyer wants Ottawa to clarify what Ethiopia has done with Bashir Makhtal and explain why the former Toronto resident hasn't been given consular access.

Lorne Waldman says the African country's government is either lying to the Canadian government or lying to an Ethiopian lawyer hired to represent Makhtal.

Waldman's comments are the latest twist in a protracted story that began in late January when the Canadian citizen was detained without charge.

Initially, the Ethiopian government denied it was holding Makhtal, believed to be 40 although his birth is not documented in the village where he was born. Later, Ethiopia acknowledged his detention.

Now, officials at the Central Investigation Bureau in Addis Ababa are telling another story.

On Friday, Mekuria Tafassa, an Ethiopian lawyer hired by the man's family in Canada, went to a prison known as Maikelawi to visit Makhtal, said Said Maktal, Makhtal's cousin, who lives in Hamilton.

The lawyer was told Makhtal wasn't there.

Tafassa was allowed to see the prisoner registry but Makhtal's name was not on it, his cousin said. The lawyer went to a prison outside Addis Ababa to see if Makhtal was there, recounts the cousin. But he was told Makhtal was not there, either.

"We're hoping the Canadian government will go back and put pressure on them (the Ethiopian government) to try to clarify what's going on," said Waldman, who has been hired by the family here to help free Makhtal.

"They're either lying to the Ethiopian lawyer or lying to the Canadian government about where he has been detained.

"It's incumbent upon the Canadian government to make the strongest possible protest through diplomatic channels about their breach of international obligations. The fact he has been denied access for four months is unconscionable."

In April, Ottawa told Maktal that it had received a report from the embassy that Ethiopia's foreign affairs minister admitted that his country has Bashir Makhtal.

Foreign Affairs officials told the Star that Ottawa received confirmation on April 13 from Ethiopian authorities that Makhtal was in custody.

This month, a Canadian official told the cousin that Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay had called his Ethiopian counterpart on behalf of Makhtal and was assured the Canadian was not being mistreated.

The call followed reports Makhtal had been tortured and that his two sons and brother had been arrested in their hometown of Jigjiga, Ethiopia.

Maktal says Makhtal's two sisters have also been arrested after two men came to their home in Jigjiga last Thursday night and tore it apart.

Maktal wants Ottawa to send the Ethiopian lawyer a copy of the confirmation it received of his cousin's detention to help the Ethiopian lawyer locate him.

But he has hit a bureaucratic roadblock. Ottawa is telling him it can't release that information because of the privacy issues.

"My cousin is now between two countries," said Maktal. "One is telling me that due to the privacy act they can't give me the proof when (the Ethiopian government) admitted he was there ... and the other is a country telling his lawyer they don't have my cousin."

Makhtal is among 41 prisoners from at least 17 countries that Ethiopia has admitted holding. He was arrested in December as he tried to enter Kenya to escape the civil war in Somalia.

He was returned to Somalia and eventually deported to Ethiopia.

He is alleged to have ties to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a group fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in eastern Ethiopia.

While Makhtal's grandfather was one of the group's founders, his family denies Makhtal has ties to the group.

Three Swedes who were among those held were released on Friday, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
 
Source: Toronto Star

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