Swedish journalists jailed in Ethiopia over rebel links

A lawyer for two Swedish journalists each sentenced by an Ethiopian court to 11 years in prison says appealing the ruling may be difficult.

A lawyer for two Swedish journalists each sentenced by an Ethiopian court to 11 years in prison says appealing the ruling may be difficult.

Reporter Martin Schibbye and photographer Johan Persson were found guilty of entering Ethiopia illegally and helping and promoting an outlawed rebel group.

The two men were arrested in July after they entered the Ogaden province from Somalia's Puntland region in the company of members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front.

A defence lawyer for the two men, Sileshi Ketsela, says his clients are considering whether to appeal the sentence.

Mr Ketsela says there's been no talk of pleading for clemency at this stage.

"I stand for something I believe in and I personally think it is unfair. Therefore, I believe it could be reversed through an appeal. However, it is the clients who decide if we should appeal or not, but that is our opinion."

The two journalists, who are believed to be freelancers, had also been charged with terrorism.

But they were cleared by the court, when it deemed no evidence could be found to prove they had participated in any attacks.

Mr Schibbye and Mr Persson did, however, admit they had entered the country without a permit, and for this the prosecution sought a heavier sentence.

Their lawyer in Stockholm, Thomas Olsson, describes the final verdict as "brutal".

"Eleven years in prison can, at the first glance, seem as a positive decision. If you think of the fact that the prosecutor wanted 18-and-a-half years. But you should also remember that this is about two innocent journalists who have tried to do their work, and in that perspective, to sentence them to 11 years in prison is a very brutal verdict."

Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson told the court they'd travelled to the Ogaden region to investigate the activities of an oil explorer which in 2009 bought licences in the country from the Swedish company, Lundin Petroleum.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was a board member of Lundin Oil and its successor Lundin Petroleum between 2000 and 2006.

Mr Olsson fears should the pair decide to proceed with an appeal, or hope for a pardon, their chances don't look promising.

"The first condition for pardon is that the legal procedures have been finished and then you have to admit the crime and confess yourself guilty and you have to say that you are sorry for having troubled the state of Ethiopia."

A prominent member of the Ogaden community in Melbourne, Hasan Nur, says the sentence passed down against the two journalists is severe and designed to warn the media and human rights organisations against taking an interest in the region.

But he praises their work, arguing more needs to be said about what international oil exploration companies are doing in the Ogaden.

"The world is going nuts with energy resources and that region in the Ogaden has got resources and they're taking the people out, they're forcing the villagers to get out, they're burning their houses, taking their livestock or killing them, they're moving them away. It is landlocked. Now what is happening is they're not allowing any journalists to go into that region or no politicians or nothing, no human rights organisations can operate in that region except those companies that have got mining interests."

Hasan Nur says he doesn't believe the reporter and the photographer will be made to serve out their sentences, but will instead be deported back to Sweden.

He accuses the Ethiopian government of siding with the international exploration companies and cutting the predominantly ethnic Somali region off from the world.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front, according to Mr Nur, is a resistance group fighting for independence from Ethiopia.

"It started in 1884 when the Europeans were trying to divide Africa. Ethiopia was the only African country that was sitting at that table and they took the share of the Ogaden region and the Oromo region and before that it used to be called Abyssinia. We were never part of Ethiopia, so ever since we been colonised, those countries that have been colonised by the white Europeans are now more likely all of them independent. But the ones that have been colonised by the African Ethiopians are not free and now we are struggling. It's not only us. It's the Oromo who are fighting at the same time."

The Swedish government has vowed to continue efforts to free the two men by contacting Ethiopian ministers and consulting with the United States and the European Union.

The EU and the US have also called for their release.