Legalizing Torture: The Brutal Reality of Ethiopia’s New Bill

How the legal immunity contained in a new anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism law risks fueling unchecked abuse

On 18 June, the Ethiopian Parliament passed a law which amends the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing framework. The law introduces legal immunity for undercover agents who commit crimes deemed “beyond their control” during operations.

While officials argue this will strengthen security enforcement, the lack of clarity around key terms such as “undercover agent” and “beyond control” presents significant human rights concerns.

Article 33(4) of Proclamation No. 1387/2025 grants agents advance immunity for crimes committed while conducting undercover operations. But what exactly counts as “beyond control”? Without a specific legal definition, it could cover a vast array of abuses, from coerced confessions and illegal surveillance to violence against civilians.

Furthermore, the term “undercover agent” lacks a clear statutory limit. It could be expansively interpreted to include not only trained intelligence personnel but also plainclothes officers, unvetted informants, or even politically motivated civilians acting under unofficial orders. This lack of legal clarity allows authorities to go too far in enforcing it—a classic case of overreach.

Ethiopia’s own experience provides a warning. The 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) was widely criticized for its vague terminology and sweeping authority. Critics, including Human Rights Watch, noted that the law conflated peaceful protest with terrorism and allowed excessively broad surveillance and arrest powers.

A review of 123 cases involving 985 defendants from 2011 to 2017 reveals how legal vagueness in the ATP was systematically exploited. The data shows that the law was frequently used not to combat genuine threats, but to suppress peaceful dissent. Roughly one-third of those charged were journalists, opposition figures, human rights defenders, and political activists—individuals whose actions posed no credible threat to public safety or national security.

Past Abuses

Other well-documented cases of journalists and rights activists were also prosecuted under the ATP. For example, Reeyot Alemu, a journalist for the independent weekly Feteh, was arrested in 2011 and sentenced under the ATP to 14 years in prison, later reduced to five years on appeal.

Her conviction was based largely on private emails and phone records, which the authorities claimed showed intent to commit terrorism—despite no link to violent acts. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reeyot’s prosecution was widely condemned as politically motivated and a violation of press freedom.

Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of Awramba Times, was similarly charged under the ATP and sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2012. CPJ reported that the charges were tied to his alleged association with Ginbot 7, a proscribed political opposition group, and were part of a pattern of targeting journalists critical of the government.

Eskinder Nega, a prominent journalist, was also convicted under the ATP in 2012 and sentenced to 18 years in prison. His “crime” was publishing articles and giving speeches that criticized the government’s use of the anti-terrorism law to stifle political opposition. According to CPJ, Eskinder was accused of inciting terrorism despite merely exercising his right to free expression.

These cases illustrate how Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism framework, particularly the ATP, was leveraged to delegitimize dissent and silence critical voices. In such an environment, The new bill’s provision of immunity for undercover agents—without any statutory definition or oversight mechanism—opens the door to further abuse.

Ethiopia’s experience shows that when national security laws are vague and unchecked, they become powerful tools of repression rather than legitimate safeguards against violence.

Existing Safeguards

This pattern of abuse underscores the danger of bypassing judicial oversight—particularly when the law already offers mechanisms for handling extraordinary circumstances.

Ethiopia’s existing Criminal Code accounts for such instances. Article 57 exonerates criminal liability in cases involving accident or force majeure. Article 58 provides protection where outcomes were neither intended nor reasonably foreseeable. These safeguards allow courts to excuse conduct when truly justified, while preserving judicial scrutiny.

By contrast, Article 33(4) offers a blanket advance waiver—sidestepping courts entirely. This flips the principle of due process on its head and contradicts both Ethiopia’s constitution and its obligations under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Ethiopia has ratified.

In other words, Ethiopia already has the tools to protect agents acting under duress. What Article 33(4) adds is not clarity or efficient enforcement of the law—it is impunity.

Global Patterns

This kind of legal impunity is not without precedent. International experience shows how vaguely worded immunity laws often fuel systemic abuse. Following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials drafted secret legal memos authorizing “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding and prolonged isolation. These tactics, later exposed and condemned as torture, were legally shielded by the Office of Legal Counsel memos—now infamous as the “Torture Memos”.

Similarly, India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has granted broad immunity to security forces operating in “disturbed areas.” This has enabled decades of extrajudicial killings, torture, and sexual violence in regions such as Kashmir and Manipur.

According to a report by the Indian Supreme Court, in 1,528 cases investigated between 2000 and 2012, “no prosecution was sanctioned by the government.”

Such laws erode the rule of law and perpetuate a culture of unaccountability. Ethiopia risks repeating this trajectory unless Article 33(4) is repealed or fundamentally reformed.

War Context

The timing of the proposed amendment to Article 33(4) is especially troubling. It arrives amid an ongoing war in the Amhara region, where grave human rights abuses have intensified since April 2023.

According to Amnesty International’s April 2025 report, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) has engaged in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and the persecution of journalists, academics, and community leaders—all aimed at silencing dissent and consolidating control.

In such a fraught environment, Article 33(4) risks legitimizing even broader abuse. The state’s covert operations are already shrouded in secrecy. Granting legal immunity to those agents—especially in conflict zones—only reinforces a culture of impunity and fear.

By insulating covert actors from prosecution, the amendment sends a dangerous signal: that violations committed in the shadows will not only be tolerated but protected by law. In a time when trust in institutions is already fraying, this legal shield would further distance the state from accountability.

What Ethiopia needs is not more secrecy, but greater legal scrutiny and institutional transparency. Instead of immunizing clandestine operations, the country should be investing in truth commissions, independent investigations, and civilian oversight mechanisms. Article 33(4) moves in precisely the wrong direction—at a time when the stakes for justice and human rights could not be higher.

Legal Irony

In law school, torture is often held up as the quintessential example of illegal conduct. A friend once recounted an exchange from a class held the year before mine—in law school, a student asked a professor, “Shouldn’t illegal torture be prohibited?” The professor, with a composed smile, replied, “Is there such a thing as legal torture?” Everyone laughed because the idea was obviously absurd. Torture is torture—illegal by definition.

But Article 33(4) raises the terrifying possibility that legal torture might no longer be a contradiction. If an agent coerces a confession, plants evidence, or disappears a suspect, and then claims it was “beyond control,” the law may now provide immunity.

This provision doesn’t protect the innocent. It protects the unaccountable. It doesn’t encourage better policing. It encourages impunity. Ethiopia must repeal Article 33(4), or at the very least impose strict definitions, judicial review mechanisms, and transparency requirements.

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While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.

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