Siye Abraha

Siye Abraha Hagos (ስዬ አብርሃ ሓጐስ, siyә abräha) was one of the founders of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and later a member of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Career
After the TPLF defeated the Derg in the Ethiopian Civil War, Siye served as the Ethiopian Minister of Defense. Siye was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray from its founding in 1995 until 2000. Siye was a UNDP Liberia Security Sector Reform Advisor.

Siye was arrested in July 2002, accused by the Federal Ethics and Anticorruption Commission of abuse of office by aiding his associates to unfairly obtain bank loans and buying state properties. He was afterwards charged with two specific acts: that he had pressured the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to provide loans to his brother, Mihretab Abraha; and that he helped Mihretab obtain a 19% discount for 15 trucks he purchased from AMCE, a truck-assembly plant in which the Ethiopian government owned a 30% stake. In a hearing, the Federal judge, Birtukan Mideksa, set Siye free for lack of evidence, however he was subsequently arrested by the government the moment he left the building and imprisoned for six years.

On 11 June 2007, the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia dismissed the charge that he had pressured the bank to give his brother loans, while convicting him on the charge that he helped his brother Mihretab get discounts on seven of the 15 trucks. At the same session, Mihretab was sentenced to five years imprisonment and a 1,000 Birr fine, along with a number of their friends and relatives who heard their sentences at the same time. However, because most of them had been imprisoned they were released.

In July of the following year, Siye became a founding member of the Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD), a new coalition of opposition parties and activists. Since then he, along with ex-President Negasso Gidada, another former member of the EPRDF, have announced that they have joined the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party, a coalition of which the FDD is a member.