Federal Court remanded the recently detained nine bloggers and journalists to further twenty-eight days in police custody in the weekends.
It is to be recalled the detainees first appeared in Court on April 29 – about forty eight hours after their detention, when the police presented its case in three files and was granted ten days for the files of on six of the detainees and eleven days for the rest there.
The police was granted another ten days for investigation upon the detainees’ second appearance on May 7 and 8.
In both appearances, the police sought for fourteen days, which is the maximum period of investigation that can be granted at a time under the ordinary Criminal procedure code. Yet, the Court chose to grant the police only ten days at both time.
In the latest appearance, May 17 and 18, however, the police based its request on the Anti-Terrorism legislation that permits the Court to grant twenty eight days of investigation at a time. Though, unlike the ordinary Criminal procedure code, the legislation caps the total period of investigation at four months.
The Federal First Instance Court, Arada First Bench, which has been ruling on the matter all along, acquiesced to the police request this time and remanded the the detainees to twenty eight days in police custody.
The three journalists in detention are: Tesfalem Weldeyest and Edom Kassaye (freelancer journalists); and Asmamaw Hailegiorgis (editor of the Amharic weekly Addis Guday).
The six bloggers, who belong to the blog collective Zone9, are: Befekadu Hailu Expert at St. Mary’s University College, Natnail Feleke, HR management officer at Construction and Business Bank; Mahlet Fantahun, Data Officer, Atnaf Berhane IT Services professional, Zelalem Kibret, Lecturer at Ambo University and Abel Wabella, a Tooling Engineer at Ethiopian Airlines.
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