Andy Tsege has now been detained for nearly two years without trial.

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A petition signed by 130,000 people calling for a British man be released from death row in Ethiopia will be handed in to Downing Street on Tuesday. Andy Tsege, a father of three from north London, was snatched by Ethiopian security forces at an airport in Yemen while waiting for a flight to Eritrea in June 2014. He is accused by the Ethiopian government of plotting a coup, but campaigners say that he's being detained because he exposed government corruption. He has also spoken to the US Congress and the EU's Committee on Human Rights about the current regime's poor human rights record. Behind the scenes, the UK's Foreign Office has been lobbying for Tsege's release. But the British government has yet to formally ask Ethiopia – a valuable trading partner – for his release, prompting criticism from Tsege's family.

His 8-year-old son, Yilak, has written to the prime minister, asking for his help. Adrian Dennis / AFP/Getty Images Supplied

In the letter, seen by BuzzFeed News, he writes: Dear David Cameron,



I am very disappointed in you. It has been over a year and I don't see any dad in the house. He is still being held captive and you haven't lifted a finger. If you have other problems just say so. We have been working so hard on these websites. Check these websites: www.38degrees.org.uk/freeandy, http://freeandargachew.com/, https://reprieve.bsd.net/page/speakout/free-andy-tsege. Please contact this number if any further questions (if they are not answered on all of those websites).



Today is his birthday and I am sad and angry that he is not with us. So please bring my father back because my mommy tells me you can.



From Yilak Andargachew

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Last month, the European parliament passed a resolution calling for Tsege to be released from custody. To date, the British government has not officially asked Ethiopia to release him. Campaigners are concerned about his physical and mental heath after almost two years of confinement in poor conditions without charge. They have obtained notes of meetings between him and the then British ambassador to Ethiopia, Greg Dorey, which BuzzFeed News published late last year. In one memo, Dorey wrote: I asked if he had messages for the family. He said: "Hello, be brave". He did not want "complications". Finally, he asked us to ensure he was "buried in England" – it was important for children to know where their parent/s ended up.

The case has revealed a paradox at the heart of how the government deals with its allies. @DrTedros emphasized the suitability of #Ethiopia for British businesses to invest their capital. #Ethiopia

In October the foreign secretary, Phillip Hammond, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that he had been lobbying the Ethiopian government, making it clear that Tsege's treatment was "unacceptable". However, that month, at the UK Ethiopia Trade Investment Forum, an event supported by Hammond's department and also by the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills, then Foreign Office minister Grant Shapps delivered a keynote address in which he said the countries would stand "shoulder to shoulder". Hammond's firmer stance may be due to civil service pressure. In February, the Mail on Sunday obtained Foreign Office officials' documents that made clear their frustration at political inaction over the abduction, which they felt was based on flimsy evidence and illegal. In one email, the paper reported, an exasperated official wrote: "Don't we need to do more than give them a stern talking to?"

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