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| |  | | Faryadi Sarwar Zardad | | | context : | Afghanistan  | | judgement place : | Great Britain | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Was tried in 2004 for torture and hostage taking in Afghanistan; the jury was hung; the retrial in July 2005 lead to a 20 years sentence | | position : | Lieutenant of a Warlord; commander of a checkpoint |
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| | | | On October 9, 2004, Sarwar Zardad appeared before the Old Bailey Criminal Court to respond to 16 allegations: nine of torture, one of conspiracy to torture, five of hostage taking and one of conspiracy to take hostages.
Witness present at the Old Bailey and on a video-link with the British Embassy in Kabul accussed Zardad of having beating them with plastic rubber tubes and batons, threatened them with rape, having tortured them, cut off their ears, obliged them to bite the testicles of other men, forced them to work for months in the mines, required ransoms and killed numerous persons. Sarwar Zardad denied all accusations.
This is the first time that a torturer is sentenced for torture acts committed abroad. This was possible due to the ratification by the United Kingdom of the United Nations Convention against Torture in 1988, which establishes torture as an international crime. As a consequence, torture, wherever committed, can be investigated and prosecuted in this country. This crime was introduced in section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act in 1988.
After a week of deliberations, the jury, composed of eight men and four women, did not arrive to a verdict. The judge decided to defer the case to a later date.
On 8 June 2005, the retrial of the case against Sarwar Zardad before the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London started. The prosecutor announced new evidence that was not available to the first jury.
On 18 July, the second jury found Zardad guilty of torture and of hostage taking. On 19 July he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | last time seen : | | | London | | | judgement period : | | | 09.10.2004 | | | charges : | | | Other
Torture | | | profile last modified : | | | 18.01.2007 |
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