Addis Abeba — The acquittal of two men previously sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal killing of 32-year-old Zewdu Haftu has reopened one of Tigray's most closely watched cases of gender-based violence, with women's rights and civil society organizations warning that the reversal risks undermining confidence in the region's justice system.
Criminal Law On 4 August 2026, the Mekelle City Middle-Level Court acquitted and released Yared Gebreselassie and Angesom Hailemariam, reversing the outcome of a trial that had ended in July 2025 with both men convicted of Zewdu's killing and sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor.
The reversal has generated widespread criticism because it was not based on new evidence establishing the men's innocence. Instead, the court reached a different conclusion while the original digital evidence that a higher court had ordered to be produced and independently verified was never examined.
According to a family member who spoke to Addis Standard on conditions of anonymity for fear of reprisal, the two men "were not released" following the presentation of new evidence conclusively establishing their innocence. Rather, the court reached a different conclusion from the one reached in the original proceedings "while the evidentiary question that had prompted the Cassation Bench to send the case back remained unresolved."
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In a joint statement issued on 7 August, Omna Tigray, Gender Empowerment Movement Tigray (GEM Tigray), Harambee Collective, MAEGER - Tigray Women's Association in North America, and Security and Justice for Tigrayans (SJT) condemned the deeply troubling reversal.
Demographics "These men were not acquitted because new evidence exonerated them," the organizations said.
Rather, they argued, the acquittal followed the failure to execute a specific order issued by the Tigray Supreme Court Cassation Bench: to produce the original digital evidence held by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), verify it, and have a qualified expert explain it to the court.
Science Discover moreCourtcourtAfricans & DiasporaPhilosophyCriminal LawLegalCrime & JusticeEthicsPeople & Societylegal "That instruction was never carried out," the organizations said.
The statement places the unresolved evidentiary issue at the heart of the controversy. The Tigray Police Commission did not obtain the original record, reportedly citing the inability of federal experts to travel to Mekelle because of the current political circumstances between the federal government and Tigray authorities.
Legal "No further evidence was examined and no expert testified," the statement said.
The organizations argue that the court ultimately reached the opposite conclusion from the one reached in the original trial without resolving the evidentiary questions that the Cassation Bench had specifically ordered it to address.
The decision was also not unanimous. Two judges ordered the acquittal without requiring the defendants to present a defense, while one judge dissented, holding that the evidence raised sufficient suspicion to require the accused to answer it.
The result, the organizations argue, has created a profound institutional contradiction: the same evidentiary record that had previously contributed to a conviction was used to reach an acquittal, without the additional evidence and expert verification ordered by the appellate court.
Ethics A case already marked by institutional pressure
The latest reversal cannot be understood separately from the troubled history of Zewdu's case.
Zewdu was killed on 19 August 2023 in Mekelle while walking with her friend, Semhal Gebregziabiher, during the Ashenda festivities. Witnesses described an unregistered vehicle stopping beside the two women and Zewdu being violently dragged by her hair and crushed beneath the vehicle after resisting what was described as an attempted sexual assault.
The killing provoked public outrage across Tigray and became a rallying point for women demanding greater protection from gender-based violence and accountability for perpetrators.
People & Society When the Mekelle High Court convicted Yared and Angesom in July 2025, the ruling was widely regarded as an important test of whether Tigray's post-war justice institutions could hold perpetrators accountable despite pressure surrounding the case.
But the proceedings had already exposed serious weaknesses.
Addis Standard's reporting at the time documented courtroom disruptions, allegations of pressure on judges and the suspension of judicial work amid security concerns. The surviving eyewitness, Semhal, had also spent more than eight months in detention without charge after being removed from hospital, raising serious concerns among rights advocates about witness protection and the treatment of people connected to gender-based violence cases.
The joint statement now argues that these were not isolated irregularities.
Geographic Reference "This is not the first irregularity in this case, which was obstructed at nearly every stage," the organizations said.
The statement recalls that Semhal was removed from her hospital bed without medical discharge, brought before a judge without legal representation and held for more than eight months without charge.
It also points to disruptions inside the courts. In May 2025, relatives of the accused reportedly disrupted proceedings in Mekelle, triggering a judicial strike and the closure of courts across the city.
Tigray's authorities subsequently pledged to protect judicial independence and hold those responsible accountable.
"Nothing followed," the organizations said.
Criminal Law That unresolved history now weighs heavily on the latest decision.
The unanswered question of the digital evidence
The most immediate legal controversy concerns the digital evidence reportedly connected to Zewdu's mobile phone.
Following the original conviction, the defendants appealed. The Tigray Supreme Court upheld the judgment before the case reached the Cassation Bench.
The Cassation Bench then remanded the case with instructions that the original digital evidence held by NISS be produced, verified and explained by a qualified expert.
According to the joint statement, however, the evidence was never produced.
Newspapers The BBC Amharic account of the proceedings, published on 6 August, similarly reported that the regional police had been unable to obtain the original evidence from the federal institution and that the court proceeded without the expert verification ordered by the Cassation Bench.
The report also indicated that questions surrounding the phone's digital information had become central to the proceedings, including discrepancies concerning the phone's identification and the SIM card information extracted during the earlier investigation.
But rather than resolving those discrepancies through the ordered examination, the court ultimately acquitted the defendants.
The joint statement argues that the explanation offered by the police is inadequate.
"The failure to produce that evidence must be examined, and not accepted at face value," the organizations said.
They specifically question why the Tigray Police Commission was left to execute the evidentiary order despite the fact that its serving Deputy Commissioner, Colonel Gebreselassie Belay, is the father of the first defendant and a relative of the second.
Demographics "Whatever obstacles the breakdown between Mekelle and Addis Ababa placed in the path of this prosecution," the organizations said, "they do not explain why the one body with an interest in the outcome was left to discharge the order alone."
The statement also questions why no alternative means of verification were sought if federal experts could not travel to Mekelle, and why prosecutors did not press for such alternatives before the case was terminated.
"This is the reason given. It is not an answer," the organizations said.
That distinction is crucial.
The available accounts do not establish that the police deliberately withheld evidence or that the court acted unlawfully in acquitting the defendants. But they do establish a serious institutional question: why was an appellate court's explicit evidentiary instruction left unfulfilled before a final decision was reached?
The shock of a second loss
For Zewdu's family, the reversal has transformed a long-awaited judicial conclusion into renewed grief.
Science Zewdu was the eldest of three children and was raised in Mekelle's May Anbesa area. Her father worked as a guard, while her mother brewed and sold tella (local beer). Zewdu graduated in accounting and had gone out on the evening of her death to celebrate Ashenda and a friend's birthday.
Her father died before seeing the conclusion of the case.
Her younger sister, Birtukan Haftu, has described the latest ruling as a second death for the family.
The joint statement captures the scale of the loss by noting that Zewdu's family "waited three years and trusted the law."
"What they received was a verdict overturned on evidence no one examined, in a proceeding the defendants were never required to answer," the organizations said.
The statement's characterization of the reversal as a "second death" reflects the psychological consequences of a justice process that has repeatedly forced the family back into uncertainty.
This is particularly significant in gender-based violence cases, where survivors and families often endure prolonged proceedings, public scrutiny, intimidation and social pressure before reaching a verdict.
Ethics When that verdict is subsequently reversed without resolving the evidentiary questions at issue, the damage extends beyond the individual case.
It can alter how other victims and witnesses assess the risks of seeking justice.
Why this matters beyond Zewdu
The organizations behind the joint statement argue that the consequences of the acquittal reach far beyond the two men released.
"Every woman and girl in Tigray has now been shown that a conviction obtained at the highest evidentiary standard, upheld on appeal, and reached in the face of open intimidation of the court, can be undone without a single new fact being established," they said.
That warning speaks directly to Tigray's wider crisis of gender-based violence.
Zewdu's killing occurred amid a broader deterioration in women's safety following the war. According to figures previously cited by the regional police, 12 women were murdered and 80 rape cases were reported in Mekelle between August 2023 and July 2024. Other cases involved kidnapping and attempted murder.
Legal In June 2024, women marched to the regional government headquarters in Mekelle following the confirmation of the death of 16-year-old Mahlet Teklay, who had disappeared months earlier. Some carried photographs of Zewdu.
Their message was not simply about individual crimes. It was about whether women who had endured war would continue to face violence in peacetime without meaningful institutional protection. An estimated 40-50% of Tigrayan girls and women experienced gender-based violence, including sexual slavery, during the two-year devastating war.
The Zewdu case became emblematic of that struggle.
In July 2025, women's rights advocates welcomed the original conviction but emphasized that one verdict could not repair a justice system facing structural weaknesses.
The latest decision has made that warning more urgent.
The witness, the judge and the prosecutor
The joint statement draws attention to a particularly troubling consequence of the reversal: the exposure of those who participated in the prosecution.
"Every witness who might come forward in a future case has seen what was done to Semhal Gebregziabiher," the organizations said.
"Every judge, prosecutor, and investigator who worked this case is now more exposed than the men they convicted."
The formulation goes to the heart of the institutional problem.
"A functioning justice system requires more than laws criminalizing violence. It requires institutions capable of protecting the people who make those laws meaningful," an organizing member of a series of rallies held in Tigray against gender-based violence told Addis Standard.
If witnesses believe that cooperating with investigators can expose them to prolonged detention or retaliation, reporting will decline.
If judges believe that court proceedings can be disrupted without consequence, judicial independence becomes theoretical.
If prosecutors cannot compel the production of evidence ordered by an appellate court, the authority of the judicial process itself becomes vulnerable.
And if officials with family connections to defendants remain involved in crucial investigative decisions without transparent safeguards, public confidence can deteriorate even where no wrongdoing has been established.
The joint statement calls for a broader institutional accounting.
Science What should happen next?
The organizations have called on the Tigray Justice Bureau and regional prosecutors to appeal the acquittal without delay.
They are also demanding publication of the full 4 August decision, the dissenting opinion and the Cassation Bench's remand order.
They want the Tigray Police Commission to publicly account for the steps it took to obtain the original digital evidence.
They have further called for an independent examination of how the court order went unexecuted and for scrutiny of the prosecution's conduct, including why it did not seek stronger measures to compel verification of the evidence.
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One of the most politically sensitive demands concerns Colonel Gebreselassie Belay.
The organizations are calling for his suspension while the matter is examined, arguing that the institution he leads failed to execute an evidentiary order in a prosecution involving his son.
Ethics That demand should be understood as a call for conflict-of-interest safeguards rather than proof of guilt. Establishing whether the official exercised improper influence requires an independent investigation, not assumption.
The organizations have also called for protection for Birtukan and her family, Semhal, and the judges, prosecutors and investigators involved in the case.
They specifically demand witness protection appropriate to cases involving members of the security establishment.
That recommendation addresses one of the central weaknesses exposed by the case: the absence of reliable institutional protection for people who participate in sensitive prosecutions.
A test of Tigray's post-war justice system
The Zewdu Haftu case began as a horrific killing. It subsequently became a test of whether Tigray's justice institutions could function after war, amid political fragmentation, weakened state capacity and persistent insecurity.
People & Society "The July 2025 conviction suggested that accountability remained possible. The August 2026 acquittal has raised the opposite possibility: that accountability can be undone when critical evidence remains inaccessible and institutional safeguards are weak," the organizing member added.
The joint statement's warning is broader than the fate of two defendants.
"Perpetrators of gender-based violence in Tigray must not be permitted to act, and to be freed, in the confidence that proximity to authority operates as a defense in law," the organizations said.
That is the question now facing Tigray's justice institutions.
The acquittal itself is a judicial decision and should be subject to the legal avenues available to the prosecution. But the circumstances surrounding it demand transparency, particularly because the court reached a conclusion opposite to the earlier conviction without the original digital evidence being produced and independently examined as ordered.
For Zewdu's mother and sister, the legal uncertainty is another chapter in a three-year ordeal.
Demographics For Semhal, the surviving witness, the case raises renewed concerns about safety and credibility.
For judges, prosecutors and investigators, it raises questions about whether they can perform their duties without intimidation or institutional conflict.
And for women across Tigray, it raises a more fundamental question: can they trust the justice system to protect them when the case involves people connected to power?
The answer will not be determined by the acquittal alone, rather by what happens next, "whether prosecutors appeal, whether the missing evidence is finally obtained and independently examined, whether the circumstances surrounding its absence are investigated, and whether the authorities act on their earlier promises to protect judicial independence. We want all of this to happen," said the family member.
