Berhane Abrehe, Eritrea’s former finance minister and a fierce critic of the country’s president, has died in prison, his family said.
The 79-year-old was Eritrea’s longest-serving finance minister but was sacked in 2012 following a conflict with President Isaias Afwerki.
Six years later, he was imprisoned after publishing a book in which he described the president as a “dictator” who needed to resign.
His family told the BBC that authorities rarely confirm the deaths of senior officials in custody, but they had been informed of Burhane’s death.
The government also rarely discloses where the body is buried, but Mr. Burhane’s family heard there were plans to bury him at the Patriot Cemetery in Asmara. Only veterans of the Eritrean War of Independence or national servicemen like Belhane can be buried there.
His body has not yet been released, and it is unclear when and how Mr. Burhane died, his family said.
He was never brought to court.
President Isaias has ruled the East African country since winning the Ethiopian independence war in 1991 without holding national elections.
Political parties, civil society organizations and independent media are banned.
The United Nations and human rights groups have long accused the Eritrean government of serious human rights violations, including torture, enforced disappearances and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people in inhumane conditions.
Berhaan’s feud with President Isaias began during Isaias’ 12 years as finance minister, when he urged him to make the state budget more transparent. To this day, this budget is still not available to the people.
In 2012, Mr. Burhane was fired and retired from politics.
Three years later, he secretly wrote a two-volume book “My Motherland” and sent it abroad for publication.
In addition to calling his former boss a dictator and calling for his resignation, Berhaan used the book to challenge Isaias to a debate on national television.
He also called for the restoration of the National Assembly, the Eritrean Assembly, which was dissolved by the president in 2002.
In 2018, after Mr. Burhan published “My Country,” he was detained and imprisoned at an unknown location.
By this time, his wife was in jail, but no reason was given. She was released in 2019.
One of Mr Burhane’s sons was also detained at the same time as his mother and he previously described his family’s ordeal to the BBC.
“I have a glimmer of hope for my father who has health issues [will be out of prison one day]”, said Efrem Berhane in 2020.
The 31-year-old, who lives in the United States after fleeing Eritrea, asked: “How can people be abducted by the government and disappear for years? Why do people show such cruelty to fellow humans?
But some were imprisoned even longer.
In September 2001, 11 senior ministers and generals from the “G-15” organization were arrested after criticizing the president. The collective, which included three former foreign ministers, an education minister and a former chief of staff of the armed forces, was never seen again.
In Eritrea, political prisoners are often barred from contact with the outside world.
In February this year, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands-Keris said that “impunity persists” for human rights violations in Eritrea.
“Our office continues to receive credible reports of torture, arbitrary detention, inhumane conditions of detention, enforced disappearances, and restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly,” she said.
Mr. Berhane was born in Eritrea in 1945 and earned a master’s degree in economics from a university in the United States before joining the Ethiopian independence struggle.
He is the father of four children.
