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The largest ever monetary fine that was passed by
the Federal First Instance Court against Daniel
Mekonnen, co-owner of Africa Jewellery, for an
alleged attempt to smuggle over 46kg of gold out of
the country has been overturned by the Federal High
Court.
The 12th criminal appeal bench of the Federal High
Court passed the decision on July 23, 2007, for
Daniel Mekonnen to be freed after he was sentenced
to five years in prison and fined one million Birr.
The High Court stated that the sentence and monetary
fine passed against Daniel, was based on the
National Bank of Ethiopia's (NBE) directive that has
not been printed on the Federal Negarit
Gazeta, rather than the laws of the land.
After the overturning of the verdict, the Court
ordered the return of the gold, which was
confiscated by the Ethiopian Customs Authority three
years ago, or an equivalent monetary value to the
lawful owner, Daniel.
A day after the High Court passed its decision
Daniel was freed from his Kaliti prison cell where
he stayed after the eighth criminal bench of the
Federal First Instance Court sentenced him to five
years on June 1, 2007.
It was noted that in 2004, Daniel ran into legal
problems that left him to remain behind bars for the
past nearly two years after the gold bars were
intercepted by members of the custom police acting
on a tip against a truck that was moving on its way
to Djibouti.
The Custom Authority filed the charges on the same
year Daniel was apprehended with the truck driver,
Bejiga Dugassa, for an attempt of smuggling the gold
bars unlawfully out of the country. The Authority
suspected that Daniel had been involved by ordering
Bejiga to drive the truck carrying the gold all the
way to Djibouti.
However, the Court, which has been investigating the
case, said, the charge does not visibly show
Daniel's involvement in the alleged crime.
Subsequently, the then Customs Authority prosecutor,
Yohannes Woldegebriel, revised the charge accusing
Bejiga and his assistant and dropping the charge
against Daniel. At the same time the chief
prosecutor sent the case to the Federal Police for
further investigation on Daniel's involvement.
On the other hand, Daniel accused the Customs
Authority and Bejiga, demanding his gold that was
confiscated. He argued that he sent the gold bars to
Gonder and he is not aware of why Bejiga was heading
to Djibouti. However, it was too late for Daniel as
the Customs Authority has already sold the gold to
NBE.
While the investigation against Daniel was pending,
the Federal Ethics and Anticorruption Commission
arrested both Daniel and the prosecutor, suspecting
that the latter dropped the charges against the
former to illegally advance his own interests.
When the Anticorruption Commission filed charges
against Yohannes in the High Court, the Commission
dropped the case against Daniel and he was
acquitted.
However, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) prosecutor
filed charges against Daniel in the Federal First
Instance Court based on the investigation made by
the Federal Police.
After over a year of litigation between the MoJ
prosecutor and Daniel, the First Instance Court
finally served a five-year prison term and a one
million Birr fine against Daniel on June 1, 2007.
By this time, Yohannes was still in jail defending
himself against the charge brought to him by the
Anticorruption Commission with an alleged illegal
involvement in the smuggling of the same gold bar.
Neither the prosecutor of MoJ nor Daniel was willing
to comment on the case.
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