KATHMANDU: A British court released a Nepali colonel, detained on charges , has been released on bail. Colonel Kumar Lama, incumbent colonel of Nepal Army, was detained by the British police on alleged charges of human rights violation during the insurgency period.

On Friday morning, the court slapped a bail amount of £10,000 to Lama and has denied him permission to leave the nation unless the case hearing is concluded.

Nepali embassy in the UK, has taken guarantee of Lama’s presence in UK unless the court hold final hearing on it. The embassy has also assured that the Nepali government will not issue travel papers for the accused colonel till the British court delivers final verdict on the court.

Colonel Lama was arrested on January 3 from Sussex while he was on family visit. Soon after the arrest, despite intense diplomatic pressure from the Nepali government, the British government had denied to negotiate Lama’s release.

He has been accused by the British court of committing multiple counts of human rights violation by torturing detainees while serving the Nepal Army in Gorusinghe Army Barrack in Kapilvastu during the conflict period.

Nepal government has slammed the arrest claiming that the arrest was against their commitment to try all war era crimes through the formation of transitional justice mechanisms.

LONDON: Nepalese army colonel Kumar Lama, charged with two counts of torture, appeared in court in Britain on Thursday, when a provisional date of June 5 was set for his trial.

The 46-year-old appeared via videolink at England’s central criminal court the Old Bailey. He is being held in London’s top-security Belmarsh Prison.

He stands accused of inflicting severe pain or suffering on two men when he was in charge of a barracks during the Himalayan nation’s decade-long Maoist insurgency in 2005.

His arrest in the faded English seaside town of Hastings on January 3 sparked a formal protest by the Nepalese government to the British ambassador in Kathmandu and a demand for his release.

Lama, who had been serving as a United Nations peacekeeper in South Sudan before spending a Christmas break with his family in England, wore a brown jumper and glasses and sat quietly throughout the 40-minute preliminary hearing.

The trial will be heard at Kingston Crown Court in southwest London and is expected to last four to six weeks.

A plea and hearing will take place on May 10.

Lama was remanded in custody after judge Adrian Fulford refused a bail application.

He has indefinite leave to remain in Britain and his home address was given as Hastings.

Lama was arrested under British law, which allows prosecutors to act against people suspected of torture no matter where it took place in the world.

The first count against him states that between April 15 and May 1, 2005, “as a public official or person acting in an official capacity, at the Gorusinghe Army Barracks, Kapilvastu, Nepal, you intentionally inflicted severe pain or suffering on Janak Bahadur Raut in the performance or purported performance of your official duties”.

The second charge says that between April 15 and October 31, 2005, in the same circumstances, the suspect tortured a man named as Karam Hussain.

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has warned that investigating war-crimes committed by both sides will derail the ongoing peace process.

Bhattarai while maintaining that Nepal is committed to try all war-crimes by forming Truth and Reconciliation Commission and transitional justice mechanisms, claimed that war-crimes should not be prosecuted through existing legal mechanisms.

Speaking at a program in the capital on Friday, the Maoist Prime Minister said that investigating war-crimes committed by both sides- Maoist and the government- will derail the peace process.

He asserted that Nepal will try all cases of war-crimes including murders, rapes, extortion, forced disappearances through TRC.

Arguing that the government has already pushed to form the TRC, he accused political parties of not supporting its move to endorse the ordinance, that has been awaiting the President’s endorsement for some months now.