The war crimes trial of Eshetu Alemu, an aide to Ethiopia’s former communist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam [JURIST archive], began on Monday at a Dutch national court in the Hague.

Alemu is alleged to have ordered the execution of 75 individuals during the Red Terror [USLOC backgrounder] campaigns in the 1970s, following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie [NYT obit] in 1974. Alemu is also accused of “arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment of civilians and fighters who had laid down their arms.”

Alemu, who has been living in the Netherlands on political asylum since 1990, has rejected the charges unequivocally [BBC report], denied ever giving an execution order and added that the prosecutors are accusing the wrong man.

The court is scheduled [Reuters report] to question Alemu, who has been held in custody since 2015, and hear statements from the Ethiopian victims living abroad.

Mengistu himself fled to Zimbabwe in 1991, after he was ousted during a series of insurgencies. In 2006, he was found guilty of genocide and eventually sentenced to death [JURIST reports] in absentia. Zimbabwe refused to extradite Mengistu, both after his conviction and after his sentencing [JURIST reports].