KABUL - A bounty hunter accused of running a private torture chamber has gone on trial in Kabul claiming he could not get a fair hearing because the FBI had confiscated vital evidence and locked it in the American Embassy.
Jonathan Idema defended himself flamboyantly from the dock wearing his trademark
home-made counter-terrorism uniform and dark glasses, accusing the United States Government of betraying him and alleging that the Afghans he is accused of torturing were planning spectacular terrorist attacks.
At one point, exasperated with the inadequate translation and insisting that he was not able to defend himself without evidence, he appealed to the judge in a thick New York accent.
"I can't defend myself like this," he said. "Just give me the 15 years right now, let's get it over with."
He also lectured the judge on the meaning of democracy, playing to an appreciative gallery in a court packed with journalists, his alleged victims, and curious spectators.
Idema, 48, a former Green Beret, claims to have run his own anti-terrorist war with the full knowledge of the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
However, he claims that hundreds of vital faxes from the Pentagon, the CIA and the FBI which showed the full extent of official support for his actions have vanished.
The bizarre case has embarrassed the American military and Nato, both of which Idema tricked into working with him, and highlighted the chaotic security situation in Kabul, which is awash with heavily armed Western ex-military men.
The American military has admitted that more teams of bounty-hunters are probably at large in the country, drawn by the US$25 million offered for Osama bin Laden.
Idema claimed that as soon as Afghan police accused him of torture - which he denies - US authorities reeling from the Iraq prison scandals shied away from him.
But he said that, even after his arrest, he interrogated his alleged victims in front of FBI agents.
In one dramatic aside to the judge he confided: "We both know this is a very political trial, driven by very unusual political motives."
The public gallery was left guessing about just what those political motives might be.
- INDEPENDENT
