Ethiopian court convicts man in a US diplomat slaying

By Tefa-alem Tekle

July 15, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — The federal high court of Ethiopia has sentenced an Ethiopian man to 17 years of jail term in a slaying of a US diplomat earlier this year in Addis Ababa.

The court found the 23 year old man guilty of killing and running away stealing properties of the late US diplomat, Brian Adkins.

Accordingly, the court passed 15 years of jail sentence for murder case and an additional 2 years of sentence for robbery. The court has also laid 2 years of ban upon the defendant from exercising his public rights.

The defendant admits committing the crime but he convinced the court that he had no intention to kill him but it happened up on self-defense from the diplomats attempt to some sex-sexual assault.

The US diplomat was found dead in his home in Addis Ababa severely injured in his head and half naked. Adkins, 25, was on his first foreign assignment for the State Department.

(ST)