Bar Council and Law Society heads urge foreign secretary to call for release of Andy Tsege

Andy Tsege is a British national who was abducted in Yemen by Ethiopian security agents and rendered to Ethiopia in June 2014.  He has been detained without access to a court in Ethiopia ever since, having been sentenced to death after a trial in his absence in 2009.  A campaigner for democracy and free elections, Mr Tsege is regarded by the Ethiopian government as an opponent of their regime.  Ben Cooper worked with the Law Society and Bar Council, briefing the leaders of those organisations, which has resulted in a joint letter from the Chair of the Bar Council and the President of the Law Society calling on Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, to change his approach to the case, intervene more forcefully with the Ethiopian government and call for Mr Tsege's release.

In an article published by The Guardian, Ben is quoted as saying: "The foreign secretary has shown real disinterest in the flagrant ill-treatment of a British citizen over a long period of many months and years.  Boris’s defence of avoiding interfering with a foreign legal process rings hollow in the absence of any process whatsoever for three years following a brazen abduction and no access to a court. It is high time the minister got off the fence and shows he can roar for elementary justice."

Ben Cooper and Katherine O'Byrne are instructed by Maya Foa of Reprieve and Rosa Curling of Leigh Day.