17 years late, Nadir finally appears in court

Fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir has finally faced a judge - 17 years after fleeing Britain, complaining he would not get a fair trial.

He arrived at the Old Bailey in a chauffeur-driven car yesterday and was escorted to the dock by City of London police officers.

But Nadir's attempts to speed up the legal process fell flat when he was told his trial on multi-million-pound theft charges could not take place before October next year.

Nadir's barrister, William Clegg, QC, had argued a delay of more than 28 days in receiving details of the charges and case against his client was too long.

Nadir, 69, of Mayfair, London, was remanded on conditional bail to return to court next month so progress can be checked. His lawyers are to apply to a trial judge to have the case thrown out in March.

The judge, Mr Justice Bean, ordered Nadir to be electronically tagged and imposed a midnight-to-6am curfew.