On 4 September Assenna reported that Colonel Teame Goytom ( also written Goitom) was arrested in Asmara.
Other sources have confirmed the Colonel’s arrest and his role inside the Eritrean security and intelligence establishment.
He was an active member of Eritrean Security working in Eritrean Consulate in Mekele before the border conflict in 1998. He returned to Ethiopia after the peace agreement of 2018 and became an active member of Eritrean intelligence inside Ethiopia once more.
Members of the Eritrean opposition report that prior to the Eritrea/Ethiopian border war, the Eritrean Consulate in Mekelle was involved in the abduction of dissident Eritreans and members of the opposition.
Colonel Teame is also referred to in the 2011 UN Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Report S/2011/433 (SMEG -2011). The report identifies him as Brigadier General Teame Goitom Kinfu [aka Wodi Mequelle (i.e. Makelle)].
The UN Monitoring Report states:
External operations
261. Eritrean support for armed opposition groups is directed by a small but efficient team of officers from the National Security Office, the Eritrean military and the PFDJ leadership under the direct supervision of the President’s Office. The secretive nature of these institutions, a certain degree of overlap between their areas of responsibility, and the subversion of official structures in favour of personal loyalties and informal authority, mean that precise chains of command are kept deliberately opaque. Moreover, many senior officers fulfil multiple functions and may report to more than one chain of command. The Monitoring Group has received recent information indicating that a reorganization of the Eritrean security services is currently under way, further complicating efforts to describe these structures.
262. Nevertheless, the Monitoring Group has been able to identify some key officers responsible for the direction and conduct of Eritrean external intelligence operations in the Horn of Africa region, as well as their principal functions.
They include: (a) Brigadier General Te’ame Goitom Kinfu (also known as Wedi Meqelle): usually known simply as Te’ame or Wedi Meqelle, he is the chief of Eritrean external intelligence operations in the Horn, and has been named in previous Monitoring Group reports for his involvement in support for Somali armed opposition groups.
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