A court in the Netherlands in December convicted an aide to a former Ethiopian dictator and sentenced him to life in prison for war crimes carried out during Ethiopia’s 'red terror' purges of the 1970s, including the execution of 75 prisoners. The defendant was found guilty of ordering the 1978 killings of detainees, many of them younger than 18. During the court hearings, held under Dutch universal jurisdiction, he was convicted of all charges brought by prosecutors, including inhumane treatment, torture and mass murder. He arrived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker in 1990.