BRITAIN: The controversial prosecution in Britain of Afghan warlord Faryadi Sarwar Zardad has cost the British taxpayer an estimated £3 million (€4.3 million).
The case involved a unique and lengthy police investigation both in Britain and Afghanistan - and two Old Bailey trials.
Zardad, a commander during the civil war in Afghanistan before the rise of the Taliban, had fled in fear of his life to the UK in 1998 and sought political asylum. Had it not been for a BBC Newsnight programme, he may well have remained living anonymously in southwest London.
But the programme, shown in the summer of 2000, was seen by a member of the parliamentary human rights committee and referred to the home office.
They requested Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch to investigate. It led to a landmark case brought under the international convention on torture which was built into the 1988 Criminal Justice Act.
Detectives identified some witnesses in the UK. But the only way of finding alleged witnesses was to go to Afghanistan.
With the help of aid agencies and an appeal to the current Afghan authorities, they were tracked down by officers who made seven trips to the country.
The Yard men travelled under armed escort and found conditions challenging.
It was one of the most difficult investigations undertaken by anti-terrorist officers. But suggestions that they were under political pressure to investigate have been rejected.
They were not aware of Zardad when he first arrived in the UK on a fake passport from Oman. As soon as he learned he was being investigated in Afghanistan, Zardad dropped his asylum application.
He was first charged with nine offences alleging torture, five of hostage-taking, one of conspiracy to torture and one of conspiracy to take hostages during a civil war in Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996, before the rise of the Taliban.
By the time of his trial, the charges had been summed up in two - conspiracy to torture and conspiracy to take hostages.
At the Old Bailey, attorney general Lord Goldsmith opened what he described to jurors as a unique case last year.
"We believe this to be the first time in any country, in international law and certainly in English law, where offences of torture and hostage taking have been prosecuted in circumstances such as this."
Government-appointed Lord Goldsmith said: "It is unusual to try cases in the Old Bailey, indeed in any of our criminal courts, when the matters concerned did not occur in the United Kingdom. It is more unusual still to try matters when the defendant is not a British subject nor the victims British.
"However, there are some crimes which are so heinous, such an affront to justice, that they can be tried in any country.
"Mr Zardad was found in England. An international convention and English law allow the trial in England of anyone who has committed torture or hostage-taking, irrespective of where those crimes were committed.
"It is your duty to say at the end of this trial whether or not Mr Zardad has committed those crimes."
The jury failed to agree on their verdicts and a retrial was ordered this summer.
This time Lord Goldsmith did not open the prosecution's case. James Lewis QC, his number two in the original trial, took over.
Among the many "heinous" acts allegedly committed by Zardad between 1992 and 1996 - the time of the Afghan civil war - was that he kept a human "dog" who savaged his victims.
Lord Goldsmith said one witness would give an account of the human "dog" "biting people and eating testicles" under the orders of his soldiers.
Another witness pointed out "where the human dog was kept in chains and said if travellers did not have money to pay the soldiers, they were put in a tent with the human dog," Lord Goldsmith asserted.
But within hours, the jury was already questioning the dog allegation. The judge simply told the jury to hear the evidence.
Unfortunately it was not to come. No witness actually said he had seen or been victim of the "dog". Some evidence of such a creature came in the second trial, but the prosecution did not flag it when opening the case.
Zardad's counsel Anthony Jennings QC warned jurors to treat prosecution witnesses from Afghanistan with care and ask if they had an axe to grind or came from a group opposed to Zardad.
When arrested in London, Zardad described the allegations as "lies and propaganda".