From Reuters, July 19:

UK court convicts Afghan warlord

LONDON: A British court has convicted Faryadai Sarwar Zardad, a former Afghan warlord, of torturing and terrorising civilians in his homeland for four years in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind the world.

A private army loyal to Zardad (42), including a ‘‘human dog’’ that ate a victim’s testicles, brutalised Afghans in the Sarobi district East of Kabul which he commanded in the 1990s before he was ousted by the Taliban.

The court heard how Zardad’s men and the commander himself committed atrocities between 1991 and 1996 when he commanded an 80 km area which included a key highway from Pakistan to the Afghan capital.

The unprecedented case was the first in Britain to involve human rights violations committed abroad and to have witnesses give evidence anonymously via a satellite link.

See our last post on Afghanistan.