A man appeared at a Dutch court on Monday, accused of the incarceration, torture and murder of opponents of former Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam in the 1970s.
Eshetu Alemu – who was Mengistu’s representative in the Ethiopian province of Gojjam – is accused of ordering the killing of 75 young prisoners in 1978, and being responsible for the incarceration and inhumane treatment of more than 200 people.
The 63-year-old was born in Ethiopia, but fled to the Netherlands in 1990.
Alemu pleaded not guilty to the charged leveled against him, stating that the prosecutors were accusing the wrong person.
In 2007, an Ethiopian court sentenced him to death in absentia, for his role in what was termed the “Red Terror”, which the communist military junta of Mengistu conducted after the ousting of the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, in 1974.
The Ethiopian sentence, however, cannot be carried out in the Netherlands because it does not accept the death penalty, making a new trial the best option to hold him to account, prosecutors said.
Reuters reports that the trial is based on an investigation by the International Crimes Team of the Dutch national police, and is being heard at a Dutch domestic court in The Hague, rather than one of the international tribunals that sit in the city.
The court will this week question the defendant, who has been held in custody in the Netherlands since 2015, and will hear statements from victims – Ethiopians living abroad.
No date has been set for a verdict to be issued.
Mengistu was ousted in 1991 and fled to Zimbabwe, where he still lives.
