From the Daily Mail -

Afghan warlord jailed for 20 years

12:10pm 19th July 2005



Afghan warlord Faryadi Zardad has been jailed for 20 years at the Old Bailey for a "heinous and brutal" campaign of torture and hostage-taking in his homeland.

The judge, Mr Justice Treacy, told him that the crimes of which he had been convicted "transgressed the basic rights of humanity".

Zardad had been in "a position of real power", the judge told him. "You were personally involved in these acts of torture and hostage-taking as well as authorising your men."

The warlord lifted his fist three times in salute and shouted in his own language "Allah is great" as he was led to cells to start his sentence.

He was convicted on Monday in a landmark case in which the court heard evidence of summary execution, the slaughter of 10 or 11 men in a minibus and an old man imprisoned in a metal box and whipped with a bicycle cable.

Zardad and his men also kept a "human dog" to savage victims.

Zardad, 41, of Gleneagles Road, Streatham, south London, had denied conspiracy to torture and take hostages between 1992 and 1996.

Although based in the Sarobi area, outside Kabul, Zardad and his men also committed atrocities in other bases, said the judge.

"I find you were personally involved in acts of torture and hostage taking. You were a powerful personality. These acts could only have taken place with your encouragement and approval. They could have been prevented. The fact that you personally participated in, or stood by and observed these acts without demur, can only have further encouraged the men under your command and shown them you approved of their acts.

"You were not, I accept, personally present at every incident, but I hold you criminally responsible for them as they were committed by men under your close command and control in circumstances where you had in effect authorised them to act in this way.

dailymail.co.uk

   

Hopefully those are a strenuous 20 years on him...

What is a 'human dog' that they refer to in the article?

   

He should have gotten life.