Three American adventurers who claim to be part of a super-secret Pentagon task force went on trial Wednesday in Kabul, charged with torturing eight men in the private prison they were running in the Afghan capital.
The leader of the group, a former Army soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema, said his anti-terrorism unit was sponsored by Donald Rumsfeld’s office at the Pentagon.
“The American authorities absolutely condoned us and absolutely supported us,” said Idema, 48, of Fayetteville, N.C., wearing a freshly pressed Army shirt with an American flag sewn onto the right shoulder. “At times we were in touch with the Department of Defense every day, at the highest levels, sometimes five times a day.”
Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Defense Department spokesman, responded: “This group of three American citizens on trial in Kabul does not represent the American government, and we do not employ or sponsor them.”
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Compiled from news services and edited by Tran Ha (tha@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
