An Ethiopian immigrant living in Georgia was sentenced to jail for fraudulently obtaining US citizenship Thursday after it was discovered he participated in Eithopia’s “Red Terror” of the 1970s, in which he tortured political opponents.
Mezemr Abebe Belayneh of Snellville, GA., was sentenced to three years in prison and stripped of his citizenship, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Public Affairs press release. The Ethiopian was found guilty of concealing his role in human rights abuses on behalf of the then ruling Marxist regime in his country when he applied for his initial visa in 2001, and again in his subsequent naturalization in 2008. (RELATED: An Ethiopian Lied About His Role In Brutal Human Rights Abuses To Obtain US Citizenship. Then ICE Rolled Up)
Human Rights Violator Sentenced for Immigration Fraud and U.S. Citizenship Revoked
🔗: https://t.co/EOAGcXGGYB pic.twitter.com/p8djpFmGVb
— Criminal Division (@DOJCrimDiv) February 29, 2024
Belayneh was arrested in 2021 and convicted in July 2023, following an investigation including the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC) and Homeland Security Investigations Atlanta Field Office (HSI), according to The Georgia Sun. He was convicted “of one count of procuring citizenship contrary to law and one count of procuring citizenship to which he was not entitled,” court documents said, the DOJ stated.
Belayneh was discovered to have been an interrogator at the Menafesha Hotel in Dilla, Ethiopia, a makeshift prison, according to court documents, the DOJ said. Detainees in such prisons were beaten and quizzed over their political beliefs between 1977 and 1978 as part of a political purge known as the Ethiopian Red Terror by the ruling Dergue Regime, according to Human Rights Watch.
Provocative thought.
Marxist/ Leninist military government in Ethiopia led to very violent repression of rights and a period called the “Red Terror” where Mengistu Haile Mariam had intellectuals and dissenting voices killed.
Mugabe offered Mengistu sanctuary in Zimbabwe. pic.twitter.com/IloYIszSAT
— Africa Research Desk (@MightiJamie) November 11, 2020
“Belayneh obtained U.S. citizenship by concealing from immigration authorities the abuse he inflicted on teenagers in Ethiopia during the Red Terror in the late 1970s,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Ryan K. Buchanan, stated, according to the DOJ. “We hope that today’s sentencing brings a measure of peace and closure to the defendant’s courageous victims — some of whom testified at trial — and sends a clear message to others that we will continue to investigate and prosecute human rights abusers who fraudulently obtain U.S. citizenship.”