Ethiopia has sentenced its former state minister of peace to seven years in prison on a weapons charge, his lawyer said on Friday.
Taye Dendea, once a loyal ally of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, served during the brutal 2020–22 Tigray War and defended the government’s campaign.
He later broke ranks, openly criticising the federal response to economic hardships and an entrenched insurgency in his native Oromia region.
Taye accused the prime minister of being “a savage playing with human blood” after he was dismissed from office in late 2023.
Authorities soon charged him with collaborating with the Oromo Liberation Army, a rebel group battling federal forces across Oromia.
The Oromo people make up roughly one-third of Ethiopia’s 130 million citizens, and the region has long been a centre of political unrest.
Taye’s lawyer told AFP that his client carried a weapon only because he became “a target during the war in Tigray,” insisting the verdict was politically motivated.
He described the case as a “plot” engineered to silence a once-prominent insider who turned into a fierce critic.
The International Committee of the Red Cross warned in July that the lingering conflict in Oromia has brought “devastating consequences” for civilians.
Humanitarian groups say the fighting, which flared in 2018, continues to displace families and undermine fragile attempts at peace.