Tewelde Goitom

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Tewelde Goitom, or Walid or Welid, (born c. 1984) [1] is an Eritrean human trafficker and smuggler. [2] [3]

Between 2014 and 2018, he was "at the heart of a particularly brutal and lucrative trade in desperate migrants trying to reach Europe" [4] and boasted that he moved "15,000 people across the sea to Europe in 2015 alone". [2]

He was arrested in March 2020, [5] tried and in 2021 found guilty and sentencted to 18 years in prison in Ethiopia. [6] Eritrean journalist Meron Estefanos predicted that he would be able to bribe his guards and escape like ringleader Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, who had escaped detention in mid-February 2021. [7]

In 2022, Ethiopia extradited Tewelde Goitom to the Netherlands and on January 10, 2023, he appeared at a pretrial hearing in the Dutch town of Zwolle, where he claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity. The prosecution wanted to join his case with that of Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, who had been arrested again January 1, 2023 in Khartoum, Sudan. [8] [9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Quell, Molly. "Dutch court opens trial of accused Eritrean human trafficker". www.courthousenews.com. Retrieved 2025-08-18.
  2. 1 2 "How Did One of North Africa's Biggest Human Traffickers Escape Prison?". Vice.com. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  3. ↑ "Así se fugó Kidane, uno de los traficantes de personas más crueles de África | Internacional". Todonoticia.cl (in Spanish). 2021-03-01. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  4. ↑ "Migrations. "Walid", l'un des pires trafiquants d'êtres humains en Afrique, condamné en Éthiopie". Courrier international (in French). 2021-05-07. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  5. ↑ Hayden, Sally. "People trafficking: 'They were killers. They have raped many women'". The Irish Times . Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  6. ↑ Hayden, Sally. "Notorious human trafficker extradited to Netherlands from Ethiopia". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2025-11-03.
  7. ↑ Girma, Kaleab; Hayden, Sally (30 April 2021). "'Cruel' trafficker accused of torturing refugees found guilty in Ethiopia". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 May 2021.
  8. ↑ "Alleged Eritrean People Smuggler Appears in Dutch Court". US News. 2023-01-10.
  9. ↑ "'One of the world's cruelest migrant smugglers' arrested in Sudan". 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2025-11-03.
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