General Tefera Mamo told the court that the incident would have been out of control had he not acted on it
57 suspects linked to June 22 incident in Bahir Dar which claimed the lives of the region’s president, Dr. Ambachew Mekonnen and two other top regional officials, freed following investigations of their cases, Amhara Mass Media Agency (AMMA) reported on Saturday.
The suspects were charged in court and their cases have filed under Brigadier General Tefera Mamo and Co-defendants. They were released after a court in Bahir Dar cleared them from the charges.
On the other hand, the court granted ten additional days for investigation on Brigadier General Tefera Mamo, Colonel Alebel Amare, Colonel Bamlaku Abay, and other suspects who are not yet cleared from the charges.
Initially, 218 suspects were in custody following the incident which the regional government and the Federal government say was an “attempted coup d’etat” but 103 of them were already released a few weeks ago.
Lawyers of three of the region’s top security officers reportedly said that police is carrying out the investigation properly.
“Police has did not produce any concrete evidence on Colonel Alebel Amare and Colonel Bamlaku Abay as they both detained during the incident and mysteriously survived,” the lawyer is cited as saying.
The lawyers asked the court to release them without the need for an additional court hearing.
With regard to General Tefera Mamo, the investigation so far established that he was working on reversing the attack on the fateful day of June 22.
“It is me who stopped the problem before it escalated to a more serious and extreme situation,” Tefera told the court. He also told the court that no evidence is produced to support his involvement and that he should be released.
Colonel Alebel Amare on his part told the court that no evidence that links them to the incident is found and that their situation in prison is hurting their family, and asked the court to release them.
Police, on the other hand, says that there might be people who are involved in the incident directly or indirectly and that it will continue to investigate the matter using technical evidence.
However, police seem to assure those who are innocent will in no way be incriminated, and that the investigation itself is in the interest of suspects.
The suspects will remain in custody until police finalize the investigation in the next 10 days that the court granted.
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