A First Look Back at the Horror

In December, the cabinet endorsed the initiation of a truth-seeking process and a strategy for bringing war criminals to trial. But the plan is short on specifics, and it remains to be seen whether it will be implemented.

Countries such as South Africa and Chile have gone through similar processes, but the challenge here may be more complex. The country endured three conflicts between 1978 and 2001: the communist era and Soviet occupation, the civil war among Islamic militias known as mujaheddin, and Islamic Taliban rule. In each case, the line between oppressor and oppressed was blurred.

Afghanistan's problems are not behind it. Many of the figures accused of bombing cities, torturing adversaries and ravaging the populace have managed to stay in positions of authority. The new parliament, elected in September, includes leaders from nearly every group accused of past abuses.

"They were the same as me, and now they are back in power," Sarwari, a burly man in his fifties with a long, pale face, said glumly during an interview in the Kabul prison run by the national intelligence service. "If I hadn't been arrested, I would be in the parliament now."

In 1979, Sarwari was the government's intelligence chief during an especially brutal period of communist rule, when tens of thousands of people were taken into custody and never heard from again. In one week, more than 70 members of Mogaddedi's family disappeared.

Sarwari has been imprisoned since his arrest in 1992. But in many ways his trial is an accident. Late last year, prosecutors realized he had never been tried and hastily put a case together, despite widespread agreement that the judicial system was nowhere near ready to handle such trials.

"Sarwari is really the symbol of the beginning of violence against humanity in this country," said Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a top adviser to President Hamid Karzai. "War crimes did not begin with the mujaheddin or the Taliban. The beginning was Mr. Sarwari and his party and the coup of 1978."

After the bloody overthrow, the communist regime launched a merciless campaign to eliminate rivals. The Mogaddedi family, prominent members of a strain of Islamic mysticism known as Sufism, was among the thousands of victims. One night in 1979, dozens of armed men showed up at the family's Kabul compound and Sufi sanctuary.

According to witnesses, Sarwari supervised as first the men, then the women and children were taken.

Mary Aman, then a girl in the extended clan, recounted getting a hysterical call from her cousin, cut off in midsentence as the power failed. Soon, armed men were at the door. They took her brother Yahya, 17, who had dreamed of becoming a physician. She never saw him again.

"They put their guns to my chest and said, 'Don't scream or we'll kill you,' " said Aman, now 38. "I wish they had killed me that night. They took everyone else."

Six months later, the women and children were released. For years, rumors circulated that the Mogaddedi men had been sent to Siberia, pushed out of planes or killed and buried in mass graves. Family members want Sarwari to tell them what happened. Then they want him executed.