ADDIS ABABA Eighty four former Ethiopian Marxist officials appeared in court yesterday charged with murdering 131 people during a terror campaign in 1977 and 1978 under the regime of the deposed former dictator Col Mengistu Haile Mariam. They include Lieut Col Nadew Zekarias, a former regional administrator and member of the Dergue, the military junta which ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991.
Supporters of Col Mengistu killed up to 100,000 people during the campaign. The charge sheet said one defendant, Master Technician Tesfaye Gebre Medhin, ordered the bodies of his 50 victims thrown on roadsides and squares as a warning to others.