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Addis Ababa,  (WIC) – Defense lawyers in Aberash Hailay’s case opted for another court appointment to bring in an expert witness after the named expert ‘declined’ to give her testimony.
The court on Tuesday heard two more defense witnesses while two others including an individual named by defense lawyers as an expert witness failed to appear before court.
“One of the witnesses is still in hospital recovering from an accident that occurred the week before,†said one of the lawyers. “But our expert witness declined to giver her testimony when approachedâ€.
The defense lawyers requested for another court appointment to bring in another expert witness.
The court moved to hearing two of the witnesses [neighbors] of the defendant Fisseha Tadesse, who is charged with attempted murder on his ex-wife Aberash Hailay and unlawful possession of arms.
Both witnesses claimed to have known the two individuals as a married couple when they moved in to their community some eight years back.
They testified that the couple had a ‘peaceful and loving relationship’; affirming testimonies of three defense witnesses from the previous hearing on November 22.
After witness examination, the court ordered the defense to bring its expert witness during the next court adjournment set for December 7, 2011.
Upon request by the lawyers, the court also ordered a documentary evidence to be brought from Ethio Telecom which failed to appear during the hearing due to an ‘error’ that appeared on the letter sent to the telecom service provider from the court’s registrar days before the court session.
Just as the court proceeding was concluding, the defendant complained to the presiding judges that his witnesses were being harassed.
He alleged that one of his witnesses [the patrol police] has been detained by police right after he gave his testimony last week.
In the previous hearing, a patrol police took the witness stand for the defendant and claimed to have seen alcohol drinks in the victim’s apartment.
He also claimed to have heard the victim taking all the blames when giving her statement to another police officer, who also took the witness stand as prosecution’s witness but denied seeing alcohols or hearing the defendant blame herself.
The judge closed the session advising the defendant to first discuss the issue with his lawyers.
áˆáŠ•áŒ »»(WIC)
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