Asefa Kushi (Habtamu Belay, by his family name) was arrested in the North Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State for being suspected of homicide. The arrest involved an inter-ethnic blood induced case regarding the ethnic Amahara murderer of his father. According to our OLLAA source on the ground, the information Asefa Kushi gave to the court indicated that he was the father of seven children.
While under arrest at the North Shewa Zonal Police Station, Mr. Asefa was assassinated on November 21, 2020. Prior to his assassination, Mr. Asefa was taken to North Shewa Zone High Court where he was charged with multiple homicides. While attending his cases at North Shewa High Court he was in North Shewa Zonal Police station. He had frequently asked the court to order police officials to hand him over to the Zonal Prison Administration where he could get access to food, medicine, and a public defender.
The court ordered Zonal police to hand him over to the prison administration. However, the police refused, reasoning that he had not passed a COVID-19 test. Later, even after he had a negative COVID-19 test, the police still refused to enforce the court order, by claiming to have been ordered by the command post not to turn him over to prison administration.
When appearing in court on the six different charges, Mr. Asefa requested the court to consider remedies to his circumstances. Asefa stated that he had been using only one cloth for the approximate three month period in which he had been in custody. He informed the court that there were many days in which he did not have access to food, water or sanitation. Asefa told the court that he had slept over the floor because he had nothing to sleep on. He was unable to be visited by his family, friends or his religious fathers from the time of his arrest.
The court ordered the police to immediately cease these unlawful activities. Eventually, the court ordered the Commissioner of the Oromia Police to appear and justify why they would not turn over Mr. Asefa to the prison administration. However, police officers moved him from the police station on the morning of November 21, 2020 to a place around Jama River, in between Abote and Darra, when Asefa was shot and killed.
According to Article 19-21 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and the Interim Country Strategic Plan (ICSP), the Ethiopian government had a duty to treat persons under arrest with human dignity. The extra judicial killing that officials committed on Mr. Asefa was unconstitutional and unjustifiable.