{"id":277015,"date":"2019-05-24T21:08:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T01:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=0a6ad32ff376c4aa82cfc58d5f016bb1"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T15:54:21","slug":"a-virginia-man-was-sentenced-for-immigration-fraud-tied-to-ethiopias-red-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/277015","title":{"rendered":"A Virginia man was sentenced for immigration fraud tied to Ethiopia\u2019s Red Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2019 the Washington Post reported that Mergia Negussie Habteyes, a Virginia resident, was sentenced to federal prison after prosecutors said he lied to U.S. officials about his past during Ethiopia\u2019s Red Terror.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-354823\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A Virginia man was sentenced for immigration fraud tied to Ethiopia\u2019s Red Terror\" \/>\n<p>The case turned on immigration fraud rather than a full Ethiopian war-crimes trial, but it still used U.S. courts to punish false statements about alleged roles in Derg-era atrocities.<\/p>\n<p>Diaspora accountability cases like this keep Red Terror memory alive when Ethiopian courts and politics move slowly, and they warn other suspects that U.S. citizenship papers are not a safe hiding place.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as rights and history archive, the Habteyes sentence is a dated U.S. legal marker for Derg-era justice claims.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/public-safety\/va-man-sentenced-to-federal-prison-in-connection-with-atrocities-during-ethiopias-red-terror\/2019\/05\/24\/7c8e0e8e-7e3a-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html\">Washington Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Va. man sentenced to federal prison in connection with atrocities during Ethiopia\u2019s \u2018Red Terror\u2019&nbsp;&nbsp;Washington PostMergia Negussie Habteyes committed immigration fraud by lying to U.S. officials about his background, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":354823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=1023%2C583&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1a3Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754908,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277015\/revisions\/754908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}