- The Guardian,
- Friday July 28 2000
Police and Home Office officials have launched an investigation into Commander Zardad, who is living in a rented house in Mitcham under an assumed name, after a report on BBC2's Newsnight on Wednesday.
Zardad, who allegedly committed a string of atrocities in the early 1990s while his troops patrolled a key road into Kabul, confirmed his identity but denied the crimes of which he is accused.
He could face extradition or even be tried in Britain under the law that formed part of the case against the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Zardad is said to have controlled road blocks at Sarobi, 37 miles from Kabul. He allegedly used his powerful position to stop at gunpoint almost every vehicle that passed and to steal, rob, terrorise and murder.
One witness on the programme told how a bus packed with civilians was hijacked. "Zardad was there with approximately 10 of his men, and he stopped the bus and pulled off the women and the children." The bus was shot at, "filled with holes with 10 or 11 men inside it, unarmed".
Another witness claimed that Zardad ordered his troops to kill a group of Pakistani tourists who had driven a Datsun car past his base. "They threw them in the river. They took the car. All this was done just for the Datsun car. They were all shot dead with a Kalashnikov. They were shot dead just for the car and their watches."
Another witness spoke of one of Zardad's sidekicks, a "half-savage man" known as the human dog who lived in a hole and "attacked prisoners and those who could not pay bribes. He bit them all over their bodies and sometimes killed them".
Zardad is said to have been one of the fiercest commanders under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who led rebel attacks on Kabul after the Soviet Union pulled its troops out of Afghanistan in 1989.
Hekmatyar came to power in 1996, and Zardad was said to be upset that he was not given a place in the cabinet. He was censured by the government when he allegedly hijacked three German and French aid vehicles carrying money and supplies into Kabul and was ousted from his Sarobi base.
The BBC tracked him down to the Mitcham house after a tip-off from the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan.
When confronted Zardad said: "We never harassed anyone, and we never killed anyone. I was not the commander at Sarobi. I was a commander at Kabul. I was just an adviser at Sarobi.
"I came here to England because we have lots of trouble because the Taliban are trying to kill me and make trouble. I am not doing anything in England; I am just living my life."
It has been suggested that his alleged crimes netted him enough wealth to allow him to flee to Britain about a year ago, and he is thought to be seeking asylum. Yesterday he had disappeared from the £140,000 two-bedroom house, and a housemaid said he would not be back until next week.
Neighbours described Zardad as a slim, tall, harmless looking man who tended to keep his head bowed when he walked to the shops to pick up his groceries.
One said: "He seemed so quiet and inoffensive. It's unbelievable that someone accused of such things should be living here in this nice area."
Official inquiry
Yesterday the Home Office was making checks on Zardad and the Metropolitan police special operations unit was looking into the case. Amnesty International investigators were ploughing through their files for more information on him.
The Afghan embassy said it had known that Zardad was in London, which has a 20,000-strong Afghan community, but had not made any attempts to have him extradited. How the British authorities dealt with him was "not our business", said the spokesman, who also dismissed Zardad's claims that he had not been the commander at Sarobi.
The case has some similarities with that of Tharcisse Muvunyi, a suspected Rwandan war criminal who is to be tried in Africa for alleged genocide and human rights abuses. He was arrested earlier this year after setting up home in Lewisham, south-east London.
Though there is no extradition treaty between Afghanistan and Britain. Zardad could be extradited if there was solid evidence against him. However, it is unlikely that he would be sent back, as he could argue convincingly that he could not get a fair trial in Afghanistan.
It is possible that he could be tried here in Britain for torture under a clause of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act which formed part of the Pinochet case. The 1988 act enshrines in British law a 1984 international treaty forbidding torture.
Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley, who chairs the parliamentary human rights group, said: "I think there is cause for concern. There is a public interest in seeing people accused of war crimes being brought to justice."
