Faryadi Sarwar Zardad فریادی سرور زرداد | |
|---|---|
 Zardad in 2016 | |
| Born | 1963 (age 61–62) |
| Occupation(s) | warlord,Mujahideen leader |
Faryadi Sarwar Zardad (also known asZardad Khan andCommander Zardad; bornc. 1963) is an Afghan formerwarlord andmujahideen leader. In 2005, he was convicted in the United Kingdom (where he was living), for conspiring to take hostages and conspiring to torture during the 1990s in Afghanistan.
Faryadi Sarwar Zardad isPashtun and was born circa 1963 inAfghanistan. He is a formerMujahideen leader who fought during theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan. He ran aSarobi checkpoint, blocking the major route heading fromJalalabad intoKabul, that commonly robbed,abducted and killed travellers between 31 December 1991 to 30 September 1996.[1]
A widely publicised allegation regarding Zardad was that one of his militiamen,Abdullah Shah, viciously bit prisoners and had even eaten at least one victim'stesticles.[2][3]Shah was described as a "human dog" and kept in a cave with a chain around his neck by Zardad, and brought out to intimidate captured travellers.[4] Shah was reportedly executed by the Afghan government in April 2004.[4]
In 1998, Zardad fled to Britain using a falsepassport to avoid persecution under the rulingTaliban, and requested asylum. He was the subject of an exposé on aBBC television programme,Newsnight, first broadcast on 26 July 2000.[5]Zardad's presence in London had been discussed with a BBC reporter,John Simpson, by theTaliban'sForeign Minister in Kabul,Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, during an interview in 1999.[6]
The minister had retorted to a question that "Well, you British are sheltering the criminal Commander Zardad". The BBC eventually tracked Zardad down after nearly a year, and found him living inMitcham,London.[6]He was interviewed by Simpson for the programme, in which Zardad claimed to have been based in Kabul and had only visited Sarobi as an adviser to the local commanders.After the BBC report,Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) launched an international campaign[7]urging the British government to prosecute Zardad. They issued a statement in many languages and circulated it through the Internet.[8]
RAWA also issued a report entitled "Some reports of crimes committed by Zardad in Afghanistan", which were used in his prosecution.[9]
Zardad was briefly arrested on 10 May 2003 by officers of theScotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch and bailed only to be re-arrested on 14 July 2003, by which time he was living inStreatham had been running a pizza parlour inBexleyheath for three years.[10]
The day following his arrest he was charged with 16 offenses relating to his time as a military commander during the Afghan civil war in the early 1990s. There were nine counts under §134 (1) of theCriminal Justice Act 1988 that, as a military commander in the Sarobi region of Afghanistan, he tortured or gave orders to carry out torture as part of his official duties; five counts under §1(1) of theTaking of Hostages Act 1982 that he detained hostages and held them toransom, and two charges, under §1(1) of theCriminal Law Act 1977, that he had conspired to carry out or order torture and hostage-taking.
Although the alleged crimes had taken place outside of the United Kingdom, theLaw Lords had ruled in March 1999 when examining the case againstGeneral Augusto Pinochet that torture is a crime ofuniversal jurisdiction and thus could be prosecuted within the United Kingdom; and indeed the UK was obliged under theUnited Nations Convention Against Torture to either extradite or prosecute someone facing plausible accusations of torture.Hostage taking is similarly a crime of universal jurisdiction under theInternational Convention against the Taking of Hostages.[11]The trial took place in October 2004, with Zardad pleading not guilty to all of the charges.[12]
During the trial, the prosecutor,Lord Goldsmith, stated that he believed that this was the first time in which someone had been prosecuted in one jurisdiction for alleged offences committed in the other.[1][13]One witness testified that he was stopped at a checkpoint by men with covered faces and sunglasses tied to a nearby metal chair where he was interrogated and tortured. Another, a lorry driver, claimed to have been kept prisoner for six months until a ransom was paid by the driver's brother. Zardad also denied having previously admitted to the British police that he attended a 15-day training camp where he had learned to useAK-47s,rocket launchers and other weapons. However, the jury was unable to come to a verdict.[14]
Zardad was retried in 2005, with charges of conspiracy to torture, and conspiracy to take hostages, both contrary to the 1977 Criminal Law Act. Evidence was taken from 16 witnesses via a video link to the British Embassy inKabul. As in the first trial, acourt order prevented the identities of many of the victims and witnesses from being revealed for fear of retaliation.
The trial included evidence of:
The jury in the second trial found him guilty on 18 July 2005, and he was sentenced 20 years in prison – receiving 20 years for each of the two charges to be served concurrently. The judge, Mr JusticeColman Treacy, QC, recommended that Zardad be deported upon release.[2] It was reported in December 2016 that he had been so deported.[15]
A video,Zardad's Dog, of parts of the 2002 Kabul trial ofAbdullah Shah, was withdrawn from the October 2004Turner Prize exhibition at theTate Gallery just before the first trial started, to avoid potentialcontempt of court prosecution. It was not publicly displayed until 3 October 2005.[16][17]