Eritrea’s former finance minister, Berhane Abreuje, a fierce critic of the country’s president, has died in prison, his family said.
The 79-year-old was Eritrea’s longest-serving finance minister before being sacked in 2012 after clashes with President Isaias Afwerki.
Six years later, he was jailed after publishing a book in which he described the president as a “dictator” who should step down.
His family told the BBC that authorities, who rarely acknowledge the deaths of senior officials in custody, had notified them of his death.
The government has been reticent to reveal where most bodies will be buried, but Berhane’s family has heard plans to have him buried in the Asmara Patriotic Cemetery, where only veterans of Eritrea’s war of independence, like Berhane, or those who have served national service, are interred.
His family said his body has yet to be handed over and it was unclear when and how he died.
He was never summoned to court.
President Isaias has ruled the East African country without national elections since winning its war of independence with Ethiopia in 1991.
Political parties, civil society organisations and independent media are all banned.
For years, the United Nations and human rights groups have accused the Eritrean government of gross human rights violations, including torture, enforced disappearances, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people in inhuman conditions.
The rift between Berhane and Isaias began during Berhane’s 12 years as finance minister, when he pressed Isaias for transparency in the country’s budget, which remains closed to the public.
In 2012, Berhane was removed from his position and removed from politics.
Three years later, he secretly wrote a two-volume book called My Fatherland and sent it overseas for publication.
Berhane has called his former boss a dictator and demanded his resignation, and used the book to challenge Isaias to a debate on national television.
He also called for the reinstatement of Eritrea’s parliament, the National Assembly, which was dissolved by the president in 2002. To this day, there is still no legislative body that can hold the government accountable.
In 2018, Berhane was detained and imprisoned in an unknown location after publishing “My Homeland.”
At this point, his wife was already in prison, for reasons not disclosed; she was released in 2019.
One of Ms Berhane’s sons was detained at the same time as her mother and has previously spoken to the BBC about the family’s ordeal.
“We live with a faint hope that my father, who has health problems, will one day get out of prison,” Efrem Berhane said in 2020.
“How can a government kidnap someone and make them disappear for years? Why would people do such cruel things to their fellow human beings?” asked a 31-year-old woman who fled Eritrea and lives in the United States.
But some people are being incarcerated for longer periods.
In September 2001, 11 senior ministers and generals belonging to a group known as the “G-15” were arrested for criticizing the president. The group included three former foreign ministers, one education minister and one former chief of army staff, and have not been seen since.
In Eritrea, political prisoners are often barred from contact with the outside world.
In February, UN Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilse Brands Kellis said “impunity continues” for human rights violations in Eritrea.
“Our office continues to receive credible reports of torture, arbitrary detention, inhuman detention conditions, enforced disappearances, and restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” she said.
Born in Eritrea in 1945, Berhane earned a master’s degree in economics from a US university before joining the country’s struggle for independence from Ethiopia.
He is the father of four children.
