NAIROBI, Kenya — The Ethiopian government has arrested 35 people suspected of a coup attempt allegedly backed by an Ethiopian economist now teaching at a Pennsylvania university, a government spokesman said Saturday.
Spokesman Ermias Legesse said the group, which calls itself “May 15” after the date of controversial 2005 elections in Ethiopia, was led from the U.S. by former opposition leader Berhanu Nega, an associate professor of economics at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
Interviewed in Lewisburg, Pa., Berhanu, 51, said he had no role in organizing any coup attempt. He was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in 2005 but was arrested afterward, along with more than 100 other opposition politicians, and stood trial for treason. He and the others were freed in 2007 in a pardon deal.
