Commissioner protests to Ethiopia over expelling two EU diplomats

Oct 22, 2006, 12:27 GMT

Brussels - EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel has protested to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi over Ethiopia expelling two EU diplomats, his spokesperson said Sunday.

The two men had been arrested by Ethiopian police Thursday for allegedly attempting to smuggle two Ethiopians wanted for serious crimes across the border to Kenya.

The spokesman said Michel was also worried about the fate of an Ethiopian woman who worked for the EU, whose whereabouts were not known at the moment. The EU would 'continue to apply pressure.'

Human rights watchdog Amnesty InternaTional said last week that Yalemzewd Bekele, an Ethiopian lawyer working for the EU delegation in Addis Ababa, was one of those arrested on Thursday.

'Amnesty is concerned that she is at high risk of torture or other ill-treatment,' the group warned in a statement, adding that Bekele was apparently arrested in relation with the distribution of an opposition plan for non-violent civil disobedience.

Michel's spokesperson refused to confirm that Bekele was working for the commission but said that the Ethiopian EU delegation had been in regular contact with the opposition members in the country.

The two expelled EU diplomats are Swedish official Bjoern Jonsson and his Italian colleague Enrico Sborgi, members of the EU commission delegation in Addis Ababa.

According to the commission, Jonsson worked in the EU delegation's financial department and Sborgi in the security division. Sources in Addis Ababa said the Italian was also a civil society and human rights adviser to the delegation.