10/4/2006
Brent Bennett’s account -continued-
If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.
This is the latter part of Brent’s affadavit which was submitted to the court in DC. The first part is here.
The next morning I thought I was going to the MOJ to get my passport and as we were getting ready to go, Bashir starting calling with Ed Birsner and they were on the phone for about two hours and when we were driving, the Afghans were on the phone nonstop talking to the State Department receiving their instructions and orders. When I hear the Afghans talking to the US Embassy again, next thing you know we are going the wrong way again and I realize that we are on the way to the airport. I told them my things are at Pulacharke in our rooms there and the officers told me that the Embassy said they were going to send me belongings to me. Well I knew that was a lie, for two years, we haven’t been able to get the Embassy to even send or receive birthday or Christmas cards for us.
During this time I was handcuffed, and it wasn’t because the Afghans wanted to handcuff me, they said I was a free man as far as they were concerned, but the Embassy insisted I be handcuffed.
When we get to the airport we go in a back area away from everyone and you can see my cuffs. Right then the Embassy calls from inside and the commander puts a scarf over my hands so no one can see the handcuffs. Then we start walking towards Bashir and he points down and they re-cover my hands re-adjusting my Afghan scarf and then two State Department security agents show up and were put in charge of me. They immediately started ordering me to sit down and shut up but the Afghans with guns didn’t even come into the room.
Then the US Embassy started taking my picture in custody of State Department agents, while I was handcuffed. They wanted a photo op with their ‘capture’. They didn’t ask me, they just stood next to me and did it. It reminded me of so many terrorist videos, posing with their hostages, which I basically was. The cameraman went out of the room; he had handcuffs on his belt, so he sure wasn’t a diplomat. Before they took the pictures, they noticed you could see my cuffs, so they adjusted the scarf over my hands to cover the cuffs, and then took pictures. I didn’t have a choice about the pictures.
Bashir was inside the room with two other State department security officers with at least one weapon showing. They again ordered me to sit down and relax. When I said I wanted to call Jack they said that wasn’t ever going to happen. They were continually ordering me what to do over and over but at the same time saying everything was fine, and it was really starting to irritate me. I just kept saying it wasn’t fine, I was at the airport.
Then Bashir and one agent walked downstairs, the plane lands and is on the ground for 45 minutes and Bashir comes into the room and I ask him what is going on and he says I don’t have any answers for you. I asked him for my phone and he said “I can’t do that”. So I was supposed to be free, but was not allowed a single phone call. I stayed in the upstairs room handcuffed and then they brought me through the terminal, with my cuffs covered of course. The Afghans stayed outside and didn’t deal with me at all at this point and the Embassy and their officers escorted me through. When the State Department agents got ready to put me on the plane I started making loud complaints about my phone and finally it was brought back to Bashir but he wouldn’t actually give it to me. They tried to take my Special Forces lighter but I became so upset about it that Bashir held that.
We then went over to the next security area where Birsner was flanked by Americans with machineguns, and with more State Department guys with machineguns around him further away. He ordered me to come to him. And as I got closer, he said, “these people do not want you in this country and you need to go now,” and he was not going to let me use a phone to call anyone. He just kept saying the Afghans didn’t want me here, but it was only US machine-gun toting agents keeping me in custody, not Afghans. Birsner gave my passport and plane ticket to another security officer and then Birsner took the phone and lighter from Bashir and handed it to security and said, “have a good flight and get out of my country.”
I knew the Afghans that had been American allies during the 2001/2002 war were trying to keep me in the country and here was the DOS surrounding me with machine guns and putting me on the plane. Birsner refused to give me anything and sent my passport, lighter, and papers to the crew chief in the cockpit through the security officer. The handcuffs came off when I got on the plane. I understand the AP news reported that I was un-handcuffed and escorted by Afghan security agents to the plane. That was a completely false statement. I was handcuffed until I stepped on the plane and escorted by either a State Department officer, or someone that was employed by the State Department.
When I get to Dubai, the crew chief called another security officer who took my passport and phone and then escorted me to the immigration office. When I asked him for my passport and phone he said he was ordered by the US Embassy in Kabul to meet me and pick me up along with my passport and other items. When we got to immigration he was supposed to call another number and have another agent meet me. When I arrived at the immigration police office the DOS people were already waiting there with Dubai National Security.
I explained what was going on to Dubai immigration, and asked the man why I was being held in custody and why I couldn’t have my cell phone, lighter, and papers. When the Dubai immigration supervisor started not cooperating with the US Embassy people the US agent told the immigration supervisor to ask me how long I had been in jail and what for. At that time he was holding and reading a document from Birsner at the US Embassy in Kabul. The UAE Immigration officer told him that deportees could not fly on Emirates flights. When the DOS agents argued, the immigration supervisor said, “this is the United Arab Emirates, he is not in Afghanistan or America anymore, he is in a land of freedom and in this country he has done nothing wrong.” None of these DOS people wouild ever tell me exactly who they worked for. This agent just kept reading the paper and asking me about my case and what happened in Afghanistan. He made it clear that I was still in the technical custody of Birsner and the US Embassy/State Department. The agent didn’t like what he was hearing from the immigration supervisor and went to call a “supervisor”.
The immigration supervisor did not look surprised by the whole ordeal and he looked up my name, called an official in the UAE, and said yes, I was there. He then explained that the American agents were trying to hold me and were causing trouble with him. As his conversation was going on he shook his head a few times and then said “OK”. It seemed like someone else was coming on and he was talking Pashtu and then it sounded like he was talking with the Northern Alliance Afghan Ambassador in the UAE. He ended with a very respectful goodbye, looked to see the DOS security agents were over to the side on the phone and quickly gave me my passport, phone and other papers and took me out the other door. I left while the DOs agents were trying to figure out what to do. Once we were out he gave me a special pass and took me through security around the side without any stopping or searching and put me onto a shuttle bus. He said goodbye, said that his people hated the United States Department of State, and wished me good luck. The pass turned out to be a VIP pass.
Because of the US Embassy threats and pressure, they forced the new general to do exactly what they asked (or they brought him in for this purpose). Because of these wrongful actions by the US Consul, and State Department, I was forced to leave half-dressed, leaving my shirt behind, along with my computer, DVD player, Cd player, 100 music CDs, an Xbox which was an expensive gift, all of my clothes, my personal possessions, family photographs, toiletry gear, shoes, socks., legal files, personal documents, case files, and even my dog. Several Afghan commanders basically confessed that the plan was ordered and supervised by the United States Embassy, Safarat Amrika.
We live by the creed of “leave no man behind”. It is a sacred promise to each other in war. It has kept the three of us alive through times when most others would not have survived. None of us would ever violate that oath while we still lived. The United States Embassy and Department of State, through subversion, deceit, and subterfuge, forced me to violate that oath. It is a violation of honor which men like Ed Birsner and Bashir Mamoon will never understand or comprehend. I do know that Jack Idema will defend himself against these people to the end.
Jack is correct in his affadavit, I cannot return to the United States under these conditions, and I will do everything possible to avoid that, including seeking asylum in any other country willing to accept me unless this Honorable court can help me. I have been denied an unrestricted passport which is my birthright to possess, and for all intensive purposes have been forced to forfeit all of my property. I was wrongfully detained by the US State Department after my release in Afghanistan, and I was forced to incur debt under threats of wrongful imprisonment. By preventing my request for Afghan citizenship, restricting my passport and travel, and using an implied threat of arrest or interrogation in Charlotte, the United States Consul seeks to make me a man without a country to go home to.
Right Wing Nation linked with Free Jack Idema Blogburst
Rottweiler Puppy linked with The Free Jack Idema Blogburst
Jo's Cafe linked with Man Without A Country










October 4th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Man Without A Country
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October 25th, 2006 at 4:23 am
[…] As for Brent Bennett, Jack’s right-hand man, he remains free since giving his State Department captors the slip en route to back to the U.S. While this is, in itself, good news, it is still unclear precisely what his legal status actually is — As Brent himself wrote in his account of his removal from Afghanistan, “the United States Consul seeks to make me a man without a country to go home to”. Some reward for answering your country’s call to hunt terrorists in a time of war, eh? […]
October 25th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
[…] After the turmoil of recent weeks, the past seven days have been uneventful in the case of illegally-imprisoned Special Forces soldier Jack Idema.Jack remains holed-up in his compound at Pulacharke prison, still under threat from the men President Karzai has posted outside the prison, but, for the moment, relatively safe.As for Brent Bennett, Jack’s right-hand man, he remains free since giving his State Department captors the slip en route to back to the U.S. While this is, in itself, good news, it is still unclear precisely what his legal status actually is — As Brent himself wrote in his account of his removal from Afghanistan, “the United States Consul seeks to make me a man without a country to go home to”. Some reward for answering your country’s call to hunt terrorists in a time of war, eh?While Jack and Brent continue existing in what amounts to a legal limbo, however, President Karzai’s behaviour toward hardened Taliban fighters couldn’t be more different: […]