Government media in Addis reported this week on the return from US of a delegation headed by Parliament Speaker Dawit Yohannes but failed to report Mr Samuel had slipped into the world of political exile.

The delegation also included Dr. Mulatu Teshome, speaker of the House of Federation, and Asnake Tadesse, secretary general of the House of Representatives, officials who returned back home from the conference which was jointly organized by the United Nations and the Secretariat General of Parliament.

“Samuel could not see a way that the gross human rights violations being committed by the ruling party would be stopped,” a source said. “His defection in a way is to exonerate himself from crimes being committed by senior officials of the government.”

The government shields officials who commit crimes, and this state of affair is encouraging members of the army to take the law into their hands, and walk away free, Radio Tensae quoted the source as saying.

A seasoned lawyer from the Law Faculty at Addis Ababa University, Samuel had served as a supreme court judge, senior legal adviser to president of the Dire Dawa Administrative Council and as a registrar, Tensae Ethiopia said.

The United States government on Friday urged Meles and the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) to avoid violence and resolve an election stalemate peacefully.

CUD and UEDF accuse Meles Zenawi’s 14-year-old ruling party of robbing an election victory and fomenting violence against opposition supporters, charges also strongly supported by the findings of international election observation missions from the European Union and the Carter Center in Atlanta. (Ethiomedia)