A British court on Tuesday acquitted Nepal Army Colonel Kumar Lama on second count of torture case against Janak Raut— an alleged Maoist rebel.

Earlier, on August 1, a British court had acquitted Colonel Lama on the case of Karam Hussein, while the 12-member jury had failed to arrive at consensus on the second count.

Col Lama has been on trial at the Old Bailey, in the United Kingdom for torturing two alleged Maoist rebels—Karam Hussein and Janak Raut—in 2005 when he was in-charge of the Gorusinghe barracks in Kapilvastu district.

Lt Col Lama was serving with the United Nations peace keeping force in South Sudan when he was arrested while visiting his family in East Sussex in January 2013.

Lama has all along denied both counts of inflicting severe pain or suffering. The Old Bailey on Monday acquitted Lama on the case of Karam Hussein. Hearing on Janak Raut’s case has been postponed until first week of September.

He was arrested under Section 134 (sub-section 1) of the Criminal Justice Act, a law that defines torture as a universal jurisdiction, and the prosecution is being brought in Britain because an obligation under the United Nations Convention Against Torture to bring suspects to justice wherever they are detained. Torture, like war crimes, is subject to universal jurisdiction, allowing those who allegedly committed crimes abroad to be tried in Britain.

Hussein and Raut were arrested during the decade-long Maoist insurgency on suspicion of assisting then Maoist rebels. Lama faces charges of subjecting the two victims to mistreatment during their detention at the barracks of which he was the in charge in 2005.

Lama’s case has been dragging on for the last three years, with on one occasion in March last year the court adjourning the trial for the lack of a qualified interpreter for the Old Bailey hearing.