A US citizen in court charged with running a private "war on terror" in Afghanistan claimed he and two other Americans were working with the full knowledge of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


Jonathan Idema, who denies charges he detained and tortured Afghan citizens without US government consent, said they were hunting terrorists under the auspices of the Pentagon and said they had since been abandoned by US authorities.

The group had emails, faxes and recordings to prove their links with senior US Defence Department officials, he added.

"We were in contact directly by fax, and email and phone with Donald Rumsfeld's office, with the Deputy Secretary of Defence for Intelligence, and with Kevin Anderson, a four-star rank officer level at the Pentagon."

"The American authorities absolutely condoned what we did, they absolutely supported what we did. We have extensive evidence of that," said Idema, who is on trial with his subordinates Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo. [ more ]

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