Ethiopia charges 5 with terrorism over assassination attempt
Ethiopia's attorney general on Friday filed
terrorism charges against five people accused of trying to "kill the prime
minister" at a huge rally in the capital in June, barely two months after
the reformist leader took office, ABC News reported.
The charges say the five acted on the premise that
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is not popular among Oromos, Ethiopia's largest
ethnic group, and wanted to pave the way for the once-banned Oromo Liberation
Front.
That group's leaders recently returned after Abiy's
government in July removed it from a terror list and invited all exiled groups
to participate in politics.
Abiy, Ethiopia's first prime minister from the Oromo
ethnic group, has announced sweeping and largely popular reforms since taking
office in April, but ethnic tensions in Africa's second most populous country
pose his biggest challenge.
A bomb, thrown at the stage while Abiy waved to the
crowd of tens of thousands in Addis Ababa's Meskel Square on June 23, killed
two people and wounded more than 150.
