When Johan and Martin was shot and arrested in Ogaden Abdulahi followed the process from the other side. He was one of the regions president’s closest advisers, and participated in discussions on how the arrest was documented with fake filming.
Hussein was also responsible for the president’s mediawork and therefore had access to all the films produced in the region. In two years he had secretly copied the files, hoping to convey them to the world outside of Ethiopia.
These files contain evidence of abuse of human rights; murder, torture, rape and previously unknown massacres of civilians.
When Abdulahi Hussein also managed to get over the video with Johan and Martin, he decided that it was time to flee. He ended up in Nairobi and succeeded after great difficulty getting parts of the material published. The news that Ethiopia fabricated evidence and rigged trial against John and Martin quickly spread across the world. But there was so much more…
The film “dictatorship Prisoners” is entirely based on the material that Abdulahi Hussein, at the risk of his own life, managed to smuggle out of the Ogaden. The film gives a frightening picture of terror in its purest form.
The film is directed by Andreas Rocksén and Abdulahi Hussein and displayed in BBC1 14 October at 21:00.