Dr. Yacob Hailemariam (born 1944) is a retired professor of business law at
Norfolk State University
Norfolk State University (NSU) is a public historically black university in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Virginia High-Tech Partnership.
History
The institution was founded on September 18, 1935 a ...
; former Senior Prosecutor for the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and an elected member of the
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
n parliament who had been held as a "
prisoner of conscience" in Ethiopia.
When the
May 2005 Ethiopian election was promoted as the first democratic election in the country's history, Haile-Mariam, affectionately called "Dr. Yacob" by his former students, took an early retirement from NSU to run for a parliamentary seat in his home district. Haile-Mariam became a member of the
Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), the main opposition party in Ethiopia, which gained strong and widespread support from the public. Despite the threats to his life and various forms of harassment, Hailemariam won his race by a landslide against the incumbent member of the ruling party. On October 31, 2005, the government arrested Hailemariam and other CUD party leaders, following electoral disputes, all of whom faced possible execution. In an effort to raise awareness and promote government action and about the former professor, various NSU student organizations hosted a candlelight vigil at Norfolk State University on Tuesday, April 18, 2006.
While an Ethiopian Federal court declared him guilty with 37 other CUD members 11 June 2007, and subsequently sentenced him to life imprisonment, Dr. Yacob Haile-Mariam was released in September 2007, along with his fellow CUD members, after accepting a pardon from the Federal government.
[Matthew Bowers]
"Former NSU professor among 38 pardoned, freed in Ethiopia"
''The Virginian-Pilot'' website (originally published 21 July 2007)
References
External links
FreeYacob.com
1944 births
Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Ethiopia
Coalition for Unity and Democracy politicians
Ethiopian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecutors
Living people
Norfolk State University faculty
Members of the House of Peoples' Representatives
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Ethiopia
Recipients of Ethiopian presidential pardons
Ethiopian officials of the United Nations
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