London court delays torture trial of Nepali army officer

LONDON (Reuters) - The trial of a Nepali army officer accused of torture during the country's civil war has been put back by a London court because of the lack of a qualified interpreter to translate evidence from witnesses, a court official said on Wednesday. Kumar Lama, 48, went on trial at the Old Bailey central criminal court in February charged with torturing two men at an army barracks in Nepal in 2005. He pleaded not guilty, and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted. The trial was supposed to finish in April, but had to be suspended this week over the interpreter issue. The jury was discharged and a provisional new trial date has been set for August. Lama was arrested in Britain in 2013 while on leave from a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. He was being tried in London under the principle of "universal jurisdiction" that means people can be prosecuted for certain crimes in one country even if the alleged crime was committed in another. (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Michael Holden)