Kabul, Afghanistan ? Three Americans went on trial Wednesday on charges they tortured eight prisoners in a private jail, with the group’s leader saying he had tacit support from senior Pentagon officials who once offered to put his team under contract.

The U.S. military says the men were freelancers operating outside the law and without their knowledge.

Jonathan Idema, Brett Bennett and Edward Caraballo were arrested when Afghan security forces raided their makeshift jail in Kabul on July 5.

Standing before a three-judge panel in a heavily guarded Afghan national security court, the men listened quietly to the charges — including hostage-taking and “mental and physical torture.”

Three of their former captives described being beaten, held under water and left without food.

The Americans didn’t testify. But Idema said afterward that the abuse allegations were invented. He said his men had arrested “world-class terrorists” and said he was in daily telephone and e-mail contact with officials “at the highest level” of the U.S. Defense Department, including in Pentagon chief Donald H. Rumsfeld’s office.

Idema said that a four-star Pentagon official named Heather Anderson “applauded our efforts” and wanted to place the group “under contract” — an offer they refused for fear it would limit their freedom to operate.

There are no four-star female officers in the entire U.S. military. The name Heather Anderson is not listed in the Pentagon phone book.

“The American authorities absolutely condoned what we did, they absolutely supported what we did,” Idema told reporters crowding around the dock. “We have extensive evidence of that.”

An official from the U.S. Embassy observed the trial but declined to comment on the proceedings, where only one of the Americans had a lawyer.

Americans Edward Caraballo, left, Jonathan Keith Idema, center, and Brett Bennett, charged with running their own private prison and torture chamber in Kabul, stand trial in the Afghan capital. American and Afghan officials say the three were vigilantes posing as U.S. special forces and had no official backing.

Afghan and U.S. officials have left open whether the men, who face up to 20 years in Afghan jails if convicted, might be sent to the United States to face charges.

Judge Abdul Baset Bakhtyari adjourned the case for two weeks to give the three Americans and the four Afghans accused of helping them time to prepare their defense.

There was no attorney for Idema, a bearded former American soldier once convicted of fraud, who appeared in court in a khaki uniform with a reversed American flag on the shoulder.

Idema wore sunglasses in the courtroom, completing a look that once fooled even NATO peacekeepers, who sent explosives experts to help him with three raids before realizing they had been duped into thinking he was with U.S. special forces.

Idema, who is reportedly 48, told reporters his group had halted a plot to blow up the main U.S. military base with fuel trucks and assassinate Afghan leaders. “We’re talking about world-class terrorists,” he said.

He also said his group delivered suspects to American special forces in the past. Maj. Rick Peat, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, said he had no information on such a handover.