Canadian minister flies to Ethiopia to seek Makhtal release

[hanqadh]

Campbell Clark

Ottawa — The Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 3:56PM EST


Federal cabinet minister John Baird has jetted to Ethiopia in a bid to secure the release of long-jailed Canadian citizen Bashir Makhtal.

The Transport Minister arrived in Addis Ababa this morning and told family members he expects to visit Mr. Makhtal before he leaves Ethiopia late tonight.

“I'm hoping that the minister will bring a good result – either bring Bashir back to Canada or some good result,” said Bashir Makhtal's cousin Said Maktal, who lives in Hamilton and spells his last name differently from the imprisoned Canadian.

Bashir Makhtal has spent three years in Ethiopian jails on terrorism charges but his family says he is really being punished because grandfather was one of the founders of the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front.

Said Maktal said it's very unlikely that Ethiopia's government will pardon his cousin, but another option would be for Ottawa to ask Ethiopia to let Bashir Makhtal to serve his sentence in Canada, even though Canada has expressed disappointment at his conviction in a trial that had been criticized by human rights activists.

Canadian officials have for months pressed their Ethiopian counterparts to release Bashir Makhtal, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon raised the case with Ethiopian officials when he was in Addis Ababa from Jan. 29 to 31 for the African Union summit.

But Mr. Baird's trip is the first time a Canadian minister has travelled there expressly to visit Mr. Makhtal and lobby for his release – a step that increases diplomatic pressure.

The Transport Minister became involved in the case because he was lobbied through the large Somali-Canadian community in his Ottawa riding.

Bashir Makhtal, a former Toronto resident, is an ethnic Somali who was born in Eastern Ethiopia but raised in Somalia from the age of 11 in Somalia until came to Canada in 1991 as a refugee. He has been a Canadian citizen since 1994.

In 2002, he returned to Africa to start a business selling used clothes. In December 2006, he returned to Somalia on a visit, but Ethiopian troops entered the country, and he was arrested as he fled to the Kenyan border.

His family says he has never had any involvement in separatist rebel groups, and insists that Ethiopia's government has convicted him because his grandfather was a founder of the ONLF. “They did all this damage because it's the Makhtal family,” said Said Maktal.

[Hard-Rock]

Any update? I heard Ethiopia would not even use him for bargaining chip, it is just mind bloggling how much hate ET has for the Maktal Family and the rest of the Ogadeni Elites. I doubt that useless CanIdion government will make any progress of getting Mr Maktal released

[Hard-Rock]

Shegato Star, do you really expect me to address you? What the heck, I will give it a shot and get my hands dirty with the Shegato dirt on you. The ONLF stepped up its game and they are destroying the woyanas and eliminating many Dabaqodhis like you in the process. Basher's family has sacrificed a lot with the last victim being his own brother dying in jail last year and it is only the net you can criticize such a family and get away with it. You being one day Sheikhasha, one day Hawiye and most times you decide to make it noble with credible ancestry by claiming Ogaden but that does not still give you functioning brain that can at least tell you not to return with that fake claim back to us. For how long are you going to be rejected and still come back claiming? You are lucky I'm not the Mod, I would have banned you completely from this section.
You filth half dabaqodhi & khawarj & Full Shegato

[hanqadh]

Hard rock,

According to the minister Makhtal was in "good spirits" when he visited, i highly doubt that.Makhtal is a reminder to this insecure bastard of the strength of our people.Any figure or family that has some respect and following in the region is a threat.

This little hypocritical worm S-star cannot be taken serious, his ignorance is thatof a typical braindead Shababist sympathising dog, who had a religious awkening listening to crackheads.

Listen to him compare Sayid to Aweys because Aweys is a follower of Abdul-wahab and the Sayid was a follower of Ahlu sunnah.

[grandpakhalif]

i hope he comes back my brother in law who is OG went too school with him