A former UVSC student arrested in June on charges that he illegally bought guns is competent to stand trial.
In a brief hearing Thursday in 4th District Court, Kidus Yohannes was declared competent. His preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 20.
Yohannes is charged with two felony counts of providing false information for a gun background check and a third felony of possessing a credit card stolen from one of his roommates.
Flanked by two sheriff’s deputies, with two others scanning the courtroom, Yohannes stood passively in his red and white striped jail shirt while his attorney, Richard Gale, asked the judge not to delay the hearing.
It was the prosecution that asked for the competency examination, Gale said in a separate interview. Yohannes has maintained all along that he is competent.
Yohannes, 20 and an Ethiopian immigrant, was attending Utah Valley State College when he was arrested on gun violations. His roommates told police he was building an arsenal of weapons and showing a fascination with mass violence.
Yohannes’s roommates told police that he had grown despondent after losing a job.
The incident occurred less than two months after Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people on that campus.
At the time of Yohannes’s arrest in June, police were looking for two AK-47 semi-automatic rifles that they believe Yohannes bought at a local pawn shop. Orem police Lt. Doug Edwards said Thursday those weapons have not been found.
Yohannes had a criminal record before the June arrest. On March 28 in Provo, he was stopped on traffic violations — police said he threw litter from his car, ran a red light and made an improper turn. Police found in his vehicle a Yugoslavian SKS rifle that appeared to have been converted into an automatic weapon, said Provo police Captain Cliff Argyle.
Yohannes was then arrested for investigation of carrying a concealed weapon without a license. That gun charge was subsequently dismissed as part of a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to possessing another person’s identification. He was fined $790, according to the state’s criminal database.
A judge suspended Yohannes’s yearlong jail term, gave him credit for 10 days already served and put him on probation with the condition he stay out of trouble.
Court records also show a 2005 case in which Yohannes was charged with possessing a weapon on school grounds. That charge was dismissed when he agreed to plead guilty to a companion charge of graffiti.
More recently, police in Provo and Orem discovered that they had both been conducting separate investigations to determine how and why Yohannes was acquiring weapons and what he planned to do with them. No motive has been determined.
The investigations were merged after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent alerted Orem detectives to a parallel investigation in Provo.
Dubai: Like many women before her, 28-year-old Zaitouneh arrived in the UAE in search of a life better than her poverty-stricken upbringing in southern Ethiopia.
Initially she hoped to pay-off the Dh5,000 loan that she took to pay the illegal agent who organised her papers to get her into the UAE to work as a maid in Umm Al Quwain. However, unlike many other women who have been exploited in this manner by illegal agents in their home country, Zaitouneh was also nine-months pregnant when she arrived to the UAE and gave birth to her daughter, Jameela, in her employer’s kitchen, just days after she arrived in the country.
In a villa in Jumeirah, over 20 Ethiopian women who have been living illegally in the UAE are awaiting their departure on Sunday, to face an uncertain future back in their home country.
Little six-month-old Jameela now crawls around the women’s shelter – the only place she has ever known as home. She has no legal status here, but has been given an outpass to leave the country and travel to Ethiopia with her mother.
Speaking through a translator and social worker at the City of Hope Shelter, Zaitouneh – who is illiterate and can only communicate in her local dialect – says she hopes to learn some basic skills back in Addis Ababa so that she can provide for her daughter. She is visibly overwhelmed by the prospect of leaving the relative security of the shelter, and the thought of re-paying the loan she took to travel to the UAE.
While Ethiopians in the UAE are certainly not alone in falling victim to illegal agents, according to members of the community, it is the isolation of some of their compatriots scattered around the country, as well as a language barrier that have made them more vulnerable.
Desperation
Several months ago, out of desperation another young Ethiopian woman told Gulf News that she handed over her entire life-savings and money she borrowed from friends to someone she trusted.
He was from within her own community and promised to help her secure a UAE work visa so that she could continue to live in the city she had called home for five years. But, as soon as she paid the Dh4,000 fee, he disappeared.
Although she now has a valid visa, 26-year-old Hanna from Addis Ababa says she learnt the hard way about the problems that are plaguing her community.
According to Consul Techan Girmay, the Consulate General of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in Dubai is working at full-capacity to try to bridge the communication gap and assist the hundreds of people seeking their help every day. It is estimated that the Ethiopian population in the UAE now hovers at around 40,000.
On any given day, the nondescript office building in Bur Dubai that houses the Ethiopian Consulate teems with people, mostly young women, waiting in the long queues for their turn to seek advice and assistance from one of only a handful of consular staff.
The office has even resorted to employing volunteers from within the community and is also relying on other organisations such as City of Hope to step-in to help the most sensitive cases.
“Our nationals really are suffering from a lot of problems … we have many instances of women being raped and abused within the community,” said Girmay. “We have had cases where women have come to us because they are confused because they do not know what the amnesty is about and how it will affect them.”
Amnesty
Over the past three months since the beginning of the amnesty for people staying illegally in the country, the consulate says it has been overwhelmed by the influx of people through its doors. Since the amnesty, at least 7,500 Ethiopians have taken advantage of the reprieve and left the country, according to Girmay.
The information in Amharic – an ancient Semitic language spoken almost exclusively in Ethiopia – is posted around the consulate and distributed throughout the community.
“But, [at the end of the day] our community has to work together to try to help those most vulnerable,” said Girmay.
(AP) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As Ethiopia prepares to celebrate the third millennium, the most popular joke in the capital goes like this: How do you say “millennium” in Amharic?
The pun of an answer — “menem yellem” (ምንም የለም), which means “there is nothing” — sums up how many people here feel about the festivities to mark the third millennium, which begins after midnight Tuesday according to Ethiopia’s Coptic calendar.
With the schedule of events changing and security concerns in the capital, many Ethiopians say the celebrations — which include a concert with tickets that cost what an average Ethiopian earns in two months at nearly $170 — are beyond their reach.
The Black Eyed Peas, an American hip-hop act, will perform Tuesday night at a new, $20 million temporary exhibition hall built by Ethiopia’s richest man, and the Hilton hotel will host a $100-and-up party.
“The millennium, it’s nothing for me,” said Mulugeta Demssie, 23, a taxi driver, who said he thought the concert should be free, or at least cheaper.
“Because I don’t have money, I can’t enjoy it.”
Ethiopia follows a calendar set up by Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. that is about seven years behind the more common Gregorian calendar. About half Ethiopia’s population is Orthodox Christian.
Organizers at the Millennium Secretariat point out that some celebrations will be free, notably several cultural events at a stadium in Addis Ababa and at a field just northeast of the city center. The concert will be broadcast live on television and on a big screen.
As to the high-priced tickets for the main millennium event?
“We have costs to cover. Those who are not able to pay … will be able to watch it from the comfort of their home or in a festive environment,” Mulugeta said.
Many Ethiopians say they are planning to celebrate at home with their families.
Tigist Assefa, 29, a saleswoman, said she would don traditional dress and prepare a traditional meal for her affordable fete at home.
“The cost of living is very annoying these days,” she said.
(AP) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As Ethiopia prepares to celebrate the third millennium, the most popular joke in the capital goes like this: How do you say “millennium” in Amharic?
The pun of an answer — “menem yellem” (ምንም የለም), which means “there is nothing” — sums up how many people here feel about the festivities to mark the third millennium, which begins after midnight Tuesday according to Ethiopia’s Coptic calendar.
With the schedule of events changing and security concerns in the capital, many Ethiopians say the celebrations — which include a concert with tickets that cost what an average Ethiopian earns in two months at nearly $170 — are beyond their reach.
The Black Eyed Peas, an American hip-hop act, will perform Tuesday night at a new, $20 million temporary exhibition hall built by Ethiopia’s richest man, and the Hilton hotel will host a $100-and-up party.
“The millennium, it’s nothing for me,” said Mulugeta Demssie, 23, a taxi driver, who said he thought the concert should be free, or at least cheaper.
“Because I don’t have money, I can’t enjoy it.”
Ethiopia follows a calendar set up by Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. that is about seven years behind the more common Gregorian calendar. About half Ethiopia’s population is Orthodox Christian.
Organizers at the Millennium Secretariat point out that some celebrations will be free, notably several cultural events at a stadium in Addis Ababa and at a field just northeast of the city center. The concert will be broadcast live on television and on a big screen.
As to the high-priced tickets for the main millennium event?
“We have costs to cover. Those who are not able to pay … will be able to watch it from the comfort of their home or in a festive environment,” Mulugeta said.
Many Ethiopians say they are planning to celebrate at home with their families.
Tigist Assefa, 29, a saleswoman, said she would don traditional dress and prepare a traditional meal for her affordable fete at home.
“The cost of living is very annoying these days,” she said.
(AP – ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia Woyanne briefly detained what it said were four U.S. soldiers trying to contact a rebel group that has been fighting for greater autonomy for eastern Ethiopia, Ethiopian Woyanne officials said Friday.
Bereket Simon, a senior [propaganda] adviser to Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, declined to say when the soldiers were detained or give any further details. Asked about the U.S. soldiers, he told the AP: “Four soldiers, or some soldiers, were detained. They were trying to contact the ONLF (the Ogaden National Liberation Front). That was not permitted.”
An official at the U.S. Embassy couldn’t immediately comment on the issue.
In an interview published in this week’s edition of Time magazine, Meles said Ethiopia had no proof the U.S. soldiers made contact with the rebels but they could have been “moving in that direction.”
“As far as we know, these personalities did not have official sanction to do that what they were doing. They were violating their own code of conduct,” the premier told Time in an interview conducted last month.
An official familiar with the case said the soldiers were detained in May in the eastern region of Somali State, as the Ogaden is known. The official said they were immediately released and their Ethiopian-American interpreter released in August.
At the time, the U.S. soldiers’ detention wasn’t made public.
Mogadishu – Somali insurgents attacked the Woyanne military base in the national stadium today. The dwellers around the national stadium have informed Shabelle that the fighting went on for more than 10 minutes and the rattles of both heavy and light machineguns followed by several explosions.
At another location, Mahmud Harbi Street, which is not very far from Ali Kamiin and is the base of a platoon of the Woyanne troops, exchange of gun fire could be heard.
