Sophia Desta  Princess Sophia Desta is the youngest daughter of "Ras" Desta Damtew and Princess Tenagnework Haile Selassie, and granddaughter of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. She was educated at Clarendon School for Girls in the United Kingdom together with her three sisters, Aida, Hirut Desta (Ruth) and Sebel. Princess Sophia was imprisoned, mistreated and humiliated in the Alem Bekagn Kerchele prison, Addis Ababa together with her sisters, other princesses of the Imperial Family, from 1974 until 1988. She is the widow of Captain Dereje Haile Mariam, graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the U.K. She married him at Addis Ababa, on 31 January 1959 (in a double wedding with her sister Princess Seble-Wengel Desta. Captain Dereje Haile Mariam born in 1937 and he was killed at Addis Ababa, at the Genuete Luel Palace while defending the Emperor against a palace coup d'etat carried out by General Mengistu Newaye, head of the Imperial bodyguard on 16 December 1960. They had an only daughter: