Ethiopia: death in prison of a Tigrayan general

The identified man is already in prison for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law in 1994. Getty Images

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In Ethiopia, a Tigrayan general, a former commander in the African Union mission in Somalia, died in custody.

He had been arrested along with other senior officers in the early days of the Tigray war in November 2020. The rebel authorities in Tigray are calling for an independent investigation into the circumstances of his death. 

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General Gebremedhin Fikadu, alias "Wedi Necho", had been a dominant figure in the Ethiopian army.

On Tuesday, the Tigrayan authorities' External Affairs Office called him a " 

" when it announced his death in custody on May 2 and called for an "independent investigation" into his death, which it said follows the suspicious deaths of two other generals. , as well as "

" of Tigrayan officers and soldiers.

A former sector commander with Amisom, he was the head of the Federal Troops Communications Department when the war broke out.

Previously, he had commanded Ethiopian troops in Liberia and then on the Badmé front, during the war against Eritrea between 1999 and 2000.

He was arrested on November 11, 2020 along with 16 other senior officers from the start of operations in Tigray.

They were accused of having sabotaged communications between the federal command and the northern commander.

General Wedi Necho, in particular, was accused of having sought to send explosives to the rebel authorities.

Last year, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission met him in prison and found his conditions of detention "acceptable".

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