Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - An American convicted of running a private prison in Afghanistan as part of a freelance hunt for terrorists left the country late Saturday following his release from an Afghan jail, officials said.
Court documents filed Friday in Washington, D.C., show that U.S. officials planned to help Brent Bennett secure a passport and a ticket out of the country, and an Associated Press reporter saw a man identified as Bennett board a plane for Dubai late Saturday.
Bennett, former U.S. soldier Jonathan "Jack" Idema, and Edward Carabello were arrested in July 2004 and convicted of running a private prison in Kabul after Afghan security forces raided a house and discovered eight Afghan men who said they had been abused.
Abdul Qayum, the commander of the Pul-i-charki prison where Bennett had been jailed, said the American was in good spirits when he left the prison on Saturday.
An Afghan airport official showed an AP reporter a copy of the passport of the man boarding the plane in the name of Brent L. Bennett. The official asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Idema, who is serving a five-year sentence at the prison, also told the AP that Bennett was being flown out of the country on Saturday.
No U.S. officials in Afghanistan would comment on Bennett's case, and an American lawyer filing paperwork on his behalf said he didn't know if Bennett was free or in U.S. custody. When Bennett boarded the plane he was not wearing any restraints.
"We don't know if he was forcibly put on the plane or not because they probably knew people would be watching," lawyer John Tiffany said by phone from the United States. "I'm hoping that there were no constraints."
Edward P. Birsner, the consul at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said in Friday's court filing that the "Embassy has no intentions of taking Mr. Bennett into custody."
A spokesman for the embassy declined to comment on the case Saturday.
Bennett had been sentenced to three years in prison. Carabello, who said he was a video journalist, was released in April.
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