GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s top criminal court on Wednesday convicted a former interior minister of Gambia for crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 20 years over his role in repression committed by the west African country’s security forces under its longtime dictator, a legal advocacy group said.

Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence for Ousman Sonko, Gambia’s interior minister from 2006 to 2016 under then-President Yahya Jammeh, TRIAL International said.

The Federal Criminal Court in the southern town of Bellinzona ruled that Sonko’s crimes — including homicide, torture and false imprisonment — amounted to crimes against humanity. However, they did not rise to “aggravated” cases that could have brought the maximum penalty of life behind bars, according to several lawyers who attended the trial.

The trial, which began in January, was hailed by advocacy groups as a watershed application of the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which allows for the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad.