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A champion of capitalism, Ahmed joined an armed uprising as a young man against his country’s Dergue Socialist regime.

Only in Maaza Mengiste’s 2010 novel Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, set in Ethiopia during the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the first years of the Dergue dictatorship, does politics dominate.

Eshetu Alemu had accepted blame for crimes of the former regime known as the Dergue but told judges he did not personally commit them.

The Dergue was led by former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who now lives in exile in Zimbabwe.

The suspect, 63-year-old Eshetu Alemu, last week accepted blame for the crimes of the regime known as the Dergue nearly 40 years ago, but told judges in The Hague he did not carry out the crimes for which Dutch prosecutors hold him responsible.