- An American mercenary accused of kidnapping and torturing
terror suspects in Afghanistan told a court in Kabul yesterday that the
FBI was withholding hundreds of papers, photographs and videotapes showing
that he was employed by the agency, as well as by the CIA and the US military.
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- The American government denies all links with the former
special forces soldier, Jonathan "Jack" Idema, a convicted fraudster,
but has agreed to return the controversial documents, the court hearing
was told.
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- The case against Mr Idema was adjourned for a week to
allow him to examine the documents and prove his alleged links with the
US government.
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- Mr Idema, a 48-year-old former green beret, and his fellow
Americans, Edward Caraballo and Brett Bennett, were arrested last month
after police found a makeshift jail inside their Kabul house. Detainees
claimed they had been held for days, doused in scalding water or hung from
the ceiling by their feet.
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- The three men were charged with hostage-taking, torturing
eight people and entering Afghanistan illegally.
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- If found guilty they face up to 20 years in jail.
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- They made their second court appearance yesterday, alongside
four Afghans who are accused of helping them. The hearing was a confused
affair, marred by emotional outbursts from Mr Idema, rebukes from the presiding
judge, Abdul Bakhtari, and poor translation.
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- Mr Idema, who wore dark glasses and a combat uniform
decorated with US flags, conducted his own defence. Turning to the press
gallery, he proclaimed the trial a sham. "This is a political trial,
driven by unusual political motives," he called out to the cameras.
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- He complained that his indictment had not even been translated
into English, and said both he and his co-defendants had been beaten and
tortured in police custody.
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- Mr Idema admitted that he had detained suspects, but
said he had used "very standard" interrogation techniques. "No
one was hung upside down; there were no beatings," he said.
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- The case, which could prove embarrassing to the US military,
has highlighted the murky underworld of armed western mercenaries in Afghanistan.
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- Some work in the lucrative private security business;
others come in search of the $50m (£27m) bounty on the heads of Osama
bin Laden and the al-Qaida leadership.
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- Mr Idema's source of employment remains unclear. He was
discharged from the US army in 1983 with the rank of captain and arrived
in Afghanistan in 2001 after having served three years in an American prison
for wire fraud.
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- In Afghanistan, Mr Idema sometimes worked closely with
the international media, selling a videotape to the US network CBS that
purported to show an al-Qaida training camp. The tape was broadcast in
January 2002.
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- But he said his main objective was to hunt for the "bad
guys" in collaboration with the US army, through links that reached
as high as the office of the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
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- American forces in Afghanistan have denied all links
with Mr Idema, but admit that he once delivered a Taliban suspect to Bagram
airbase, outside Kabul.
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- The man was not the high-level operative claimed by Mr
Idema, however, and was released two months later.
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- One of his co-accused, Mr Caraballo, 35, was represented
by a US lawyer. Caraballo says he is a professional video-journalist who
was documenting Mr Idema's anti-terror activities.
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- According to the Chicago Tribune, Caraballo has won several
Emmy awards for his work.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1284663,00.html
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