A British man accused of the sadistic torture of a Scottish man in a drugs deal that went wrong has been extradited by the UK authorities and is currently being tried for kidnapping and attempted murder.
Matthew Conde is the first Briton to be extradited to Portugal to be tried for his alleged crimes in a Portuguese court, reported Correio da Manhã newspaper.
Conde was one of a gang of six Britons who kidnapped James Ross on his arrival at Faro Airport in October 2010 to settle a debt for the supply of drugs by the group.
He was held prisoner in a house near Boliqueime in Loulé for 13 days where he suffered terrible torture at the hands of his captors.
He was crucified by nails driven into his hands and feet, had three fingers mutilated, his genitalia burned with cigarettes and he was sodomized with a baton.
Police revealed that he lost consciousness a number of times because of the excruciating pain inflicted by his torturers.
Having survived his nightmare ordeal, he was freed by the gang who feared police detection and was found lying with bloody injuries in a village street near Loulé.
Arrests in record time
The Portuguese national anti-terrorism unit (Unidade Nacional Contra-Terrorismo of the Polícia Judiciária) caught five of the brutal gang in record time and then issued a European mandate for the capture of Conde, who had managed to escape and return to the UK.
The swift action by the Portuguese authorities has been singled out for special praise by the British Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
The five men detained are behind bars serving heavy sentences including a stretch of 25 years for the ringleader.
Conde, the only member of the group that James Ross was able to identify from photographs, is now in custody and undergoing trial in the criminal court in Loulé, reports the Portuguese daily newspaper.
