In 2006, after a trial that lasted 12 years, Ethiopia's Federal High Court in Addis Ababa found Mengistu guilty of genocide ''in absentia''. Numerous other top leaders of his government were also found guilty of war crimes. Mengistu and others who had fled the country were tried and sentenced ''in absentia''. Numerous former officials received the death sentence and tens of others spent the next 20 years in jail, before being pardoned from life sentences.