Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. Today we're telling

you the story of the time there was an attempt to overthrow the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie.

In 2015, Alex Last spoke to his grand nephew.

In December 1960, while Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia was out of the country,

a security chiefs attempted a coup.

The first sign of the plot came with a sudden disappearance of Ethiopia's Crown Prince,

Haile Selassie's son and the presumptive heir.

It started on a Tuesday evening. Very late, my father was called by the Crown Princess,

who said my husband has not been here for hours.

As for Wilson Azirata, a grand nephew of the Emperor, was then 12 years old. His father

was Prince Azirata Kasra, a senior member of the Imperial family.

My father went immediately to the Crown Princess Palace and they found out that something fishy

was going on. The Crown Prince had been taken to the headquarters of the Imperial bodyguard.

It soon became clear that the commander of the Imperial bodyguard was leading a coup.

The plot was the brainchild of the commander's brother, a reformist administrator, and they

were aided by the Imperial security chief and the head of the police. That night, they

took top government officials hostage. But young as for Wilson's father, Prince Azirata,

had slipped through the net. He was fiercely loyal to the Emperor and was determined to resist

the coup.

The first thing he did was to go to the British Embassy at the early hours of the Wednesday

morning in a very small folks' wagon, because also the cars were by far the well known

in the city, to transmit what had happened that a coup had taken place to the Emperor,

...