US suspect Jonathan K. Idema in Kabul. (Reuters)

Kabul, July 21 (AP): Three Americans accused of torturing Afghans in a private jail during a freelance counterterror mission went on trial today, with their leader denying any wrongdoing and claiming US government support.

Jonathan K. Idema of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Edward Caraballo of New York City and Brett Bennett were arrested when Afghan security forces raided their makeshift jail in a house in Kabul on July 5. American and Afghan authorities say they were vigilantes posing as US special forces and had no official backing.

Appearing before a three-judge panel in a national security court, the trio listened quietly to the charges — including hostage-taking and torture — and as three of their ex-detainees described how they were beaten, doused with boiling water and deprived of food.

The Americans didn't testify. But Idema said afterward that the abuse allegations were invented. He also said he was in regular phone and e-mail contact with Pentagon officials “at the highest level.”

Idema named a Pentagon official who allegedly asked the group to go “under contract” — an offer they refused. He said his men had arrested “world-class terrorists” and that he was in daily phone and e-mail contact with Pentagon officials “at the highest level.”

“The American authorities absolutely condoned what we did,” he told reporters crowding round the dock. “We have extensive evidence of that.”

The trial comes at an awkward time for American officials trying to contain a widening scandal over abuse in official US military prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq.

An official from the US embassy observed the trial but declined to comment on the proceedings, where only one of the Americans had legal representation. Afghan and US officials have not said whether the three, who face up to 20 years in Afghan jails, will face charges in the US.

Presiding Judge Abdul Baset Bakhtyari adjourned the case for at least two weeks to give the Americans and four Afghans accused of helping them more time to prepare their defence.

There was no lawyer in the court for Idema, a bearded former American soldier who appeared in a khaki uniform with a reversed American flag on the shoulder. He wore sunglasses in the dark courtroom, completing a look that had fooled even Kabul’s Nato peacekeepers, who sent explosives experts to help him during three raids last month before realising they had been duped.