Iskinder Desta

Iskinder Desta

Imperial Ethiopian Navy
Iskinder Desta; Imperial Ethiopian Navy
Awards	Imperial Jubilee Medal; Grand Cross of St. Olav; Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
Spouse(s)	Leult Sofia Amanuel
Relations	Naomi Iskinder (daughter); Princess Tenagnework (mother); Ras Desta Damtew (father); Haile Selassie I (grandfather)

Rear Admiral Iskinder Desta (6 August 1934 – 23 November 1974) was a member of the Ethiopian Imperial family and naval officer. A grandson of Emperor

Imperial Ethiopian Navy, its most senior officer, from 1958 until his execution by the Derg

in 1974.

Early life and education

(Prince) Iskinder (also Iskander/Eskander) was born on 6 August 1934 in

Haile Selassie I. In 1935, not long after his birth, the imperial family was forced to flee the Fascist Italian invasion into exile in Bath, Somerset; Ras Desta remained in the country to command the imperial forces fighting in the south of the country and was captured and executed in 1937. Iskinder was educated primarily in the United Kingdom, where he was a boarder at Wellington College between 1948 and 1951.^[1]^[2]

Military career

In 1952, Iskinder entered the

Queen Fabiola of Belgium. ^[2]

One source even claims that Iskender worked to curry support among the officer corps and educated civilians by sponsoring scholarships in the 1960s and 1970s, and that on 14 September 1973, Eskinder hijacked the imperial plane and held the Emperor at gunpoint in an attempt to force a change to the succession. [3] This is contradicted by others who maintain that the Prince remained close to his grandfather to the end, and had dinner with him almost daily.

Following a naval mutiny of 25-26 February 1974, he fled the naval base in Massawa, staying in Djibouti for a few weeks until called back to Addis Ababa on 8 March. On 12 September, when the Emperor was overthrown by the Derg, Iskinder was placed into detention by the military junta.^{[citation needed]} He was one of sixty imperial officials executed on 23 November 1974.

Personal life

He was married to Leult (Princess) Sofia Amanuel, daughter of 'Ato Amanuel Abraham, GCVO, Minister of Education. They had one daughter, Naomi Iskinder, born in 1969.^{[citation needed]}