European parliamentary committees of Human rights, Development and ACP-EU representatives attended the hearing. Representatives of the International crisis group and several Ethiopians also attended the hearing. Meles Zenawi's representatives didn't dare to appear and face Dr. Berhanu. However, the Zenawi regime sent two from its multi-million paid lobby firm, DLA Piper to shamefully represent it.

"I am from lobby firm DLA Piper. I have a question to you and Ms Ana Gomes. Why don't you fight the government in Ethiopia, like Professor Mesfin does, than from Diaspora?" Zenawi's lobbyist Asked.

The presence of a DLA Piper lobbyist at such hearing was very strange. "We have never seen you in any of our sessions before," The UK Labor Party spokesperson and Co-President of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP/EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Glenys Kinnock, told the lobbyist. Glenys has also backed the recent Human Rights Watch report that criticizes the EU executives for being silent over the crimes against humanity being committed by Meles Zenawi regime.

"In Portugal, we also had the same brutal dictatorial regime as the Meles Zenawi's," the Honorable Anna Gomes responded to the lobbyist. "We fought it both from inside and out side." As a chief of the European observer mission to the 2005 polls in Ethiopia, Ms. Anna said Kinijit leaders had won the elections. "Berhanu would have been in power. But the regime put him in jail." Anna added.

Dr. Berhanu on his part told the lobbyist: "You were doing everything to kill HR 2003. You earn money by defending a corrupt and criminal regime at the expense of the misery of millions of the Ethiopian poor." Berhau further elaborated the crimes of the regime until the lobbyist made an apology. "We don't want to fight a regime within the rule of the game created in favour of it. We don't want to fight in a framework of what the regime wants us to be."

It was then apparent that the DLA lobbyists were not in position to defend a corrupt and criminal regime. They seemed to have been very much embarrassed. They finally appreciated Dr. Berhanu for his commitment and made an apology.

Earlier on June 25, Berhanu warned EU's ill-advised policies in East Africa. During his meeting with EU officials Javier SOLANA and Louis Michel, Berhanu warned the European Union about the looming danger because of their wrong foreign policy.