An Afghan court sentenced bounty hunter Jonathan Keith Idema to 10 years in prison Wednesday after finding him and two other Americans guilty of kidnapping, torture and false imprisonment.

Idema, a former Green Beret and convicted felon, immediately denounced the trial as unfair. There were no cross-examinations of witnesses, and defendants were denied access to evidence that Idema claimed would exonerate them. Lawyers for the three Americans said they would appeal.

Brent Bennett, an associate of Idema, also received a 10-year prison sentence. Edward Caraballo, a documentary cameraman, received an eight-year sentence. Four Afghan co-defendants received sentences of up to five years.

In comments to reporters before being led away in handcuffs, Idema, 48, was defiant, accusing the judges of being loyal to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime.

“It’s the same sick Taliban judges, the same sick sense of justice,” Idema said. “I apologize that we tried to save these people. We should have let the Taliban murder every … one of them.”

Idema, who has acknowledged being enticed by a $25 million reward for the capture of terrorist Osama bin Laden, did not deny charges that he seized Afghan civilians and interrogated them in a private home in Kabul. The co-defendants were arrested July 5 while detaining eight Afghan captives, some of whom claimed they had been tortured.

Idema insisted that U.S. and Afghan government officials sanctioned his activities. Both governments denied it. The U.S. military acknowledged having taken custody of one of Idema’s prisoners earlier this year but freed him when an investigation turned up no evidence of terrorist activity.

Although Idema sought to convince the Afghan court that he was a decorated, combat-hardened Special Forces warrior, military records indicate that, as far back as 1977 during his Green Beret training, commanders had warned that Idema was dangerously unstable and unfit for combat.

In a July 1977 evaluation, Idema’s Special Forces supervisor, Capt. John D. Carlson, described him as “without a doubt the most unmotivated, unprofessional, immature enlisted man that I have ever known. … This man’s performance is continuously one step above punitive disciplinary action.”

U.S. citizens Edward Caraballo, left, Jonathan Keith Idema, center, and Brent Bennett stand at a court in Kabul, Afghanistan. The three Americans accused of torturing Afghans in a private jail were found guilty Wednesday by a three-judge panel after a trial denounced by the defense as failing to meet international standards of fairness.

In a 1980 letter of reprimand prior to Idema’s honorable discharge, Maj. Paul R. Decker wrote that Idema’s “tendency toward violence and inability to remain rational under stressful circumstances represent a potential danger that cannot be tolerated in current training environments or possible further mobilization situations, to include combat.”

Idema’s wife, Viktoria Robertson, said in a telephone interview from the couple’s home in Fayetteville, N.C., that the verdict left her “devastated.”

Although she described him as a man of “character and integrity,” she acknowledged having doubts about his military background. “You’re looking for the same answers that I am,” she said.