UK Law: Torture Is An International Crime

From the Guardian:

An Afghan warlord who fled to Britain to escape the Taliban will be sentenced today after being convicted in a ground-breaking trial of carrying out a "cruel and merciless" campaign of torture and hostage-taking in his homeland.
Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, 42, was found guilty of taking hostages and robbing, beating, and shooting civilians 10 years ago at a notorious checkpoint after an investigation by British police which stretched from a south London suburb to the Khyber Pass and the Jalalabad Road in Afghanistan.

Zarzad had reached power as a general of the Afghan mujahideen which fought the Russian occupation and was backed by the Reagan and Thatcher governments. During his reign of terror he even kept a human "dog" who was used to savage victims. The "dog", described by British policemen who interviewed him as being like "Hagrid, but scary, not friendly", is now on death row in Kabul.

The conviction strengthens British precedent set by the 1999 decision that former Chilean leader, Augusto Pinochet, could be tried in Spain for torture allegedly committed in Chile. Then, Lord Browne-Wilkinson said it was clear from the UN torture convention of 1984 that another state must bring a prosecution for torture if no proceedings are taken by the state where the offence took place or the state of which the alleged torturer is a national.

The Telegraph notes:

The Criminal Justice Act implements Britain's obligations under the torture convention, which is now has the support of nearly 140 countries.

This agreement was drawn up to ensure that those guilty of torture should not be able to escape justice by simply moving abroad.

Under the convention, a state agrees to take jurisdiction over any alleged offender found within its territory. Its options are either to extradite or prosecute.

Afghanistan did not ask Britain to send Faryadi Zardad back to his own country for trial.

So the authorities here were under an obligation to prosecute him in Britain provided the normal tests were met - that there was enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that bringing the case to court was in the public interest.

Hostage-taking, the other crime of which Zardad was convicted, is also a crime of universal jurisdiction.

Although the US ratified the UN convention in 1994, the Senate noted that its consent was subject to acceptance of its own definition of "torture".

Hmmm. Does this explain why Rummie and his underlings only go abroad if they can be sure of being surrounded by heavily-armed American troops on arrival?

Yup, it sure does.