Three Americans standing trial in Afghanistan on Monday for imprisoning and torturing Afghans were given a week to provide evidence, which they say was withheld by US authorities, proving that they had official clearance.
The leader of the group, ex-soldier Jonathan "Jack" Idema, said his group hunted "terrorists", but was disowned by the US government after their arrest because their case followed in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.
Wearing khaki fatigues, combat boots and dark glasses, and speaking through an interpreter, the bearded Idema told Judge Abdul Basit Bakhtyari that "political motives" were at play.
He accused the FBI and US embassy of withholding documents, videotapes and photographs which showed the group had worked with Afghan and US authorities as well as the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) peacekeeping mission.
"I have this document between the Department of Defence and me. It clearly proves the ISAF is lying ... the army is lying when it says we were not working for them, and the Department of Defence is lying when they say they didn't know we were here."
His co-accused are Edward Caraballo, a cameraman who was making a documentary, and Brett Bennett, another former soldier. Four Afghans employed by Idema were also on trial. Michael Skibbie, a US lawyer advising the local Afghan counsel representing Caraballo, told how the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to live up to promises to return documents, videotapes and photographs it had taken.
Skibbie said he was finally told on Sunday evening by an FBI officer that the documents would be returned "at some point" to the Afghan National Directorate of Security, and had learnt since that the evidence had been given back to Afghan authorities.
Bakhtyari said the court would reconvene next Monday and the case would be concluded.
He directed the defence counsel to prepare the evidence for him to review and instructed the US embassy to furnish the accused Americans with English translations of their indictments.
Skibbie said he had still to see the documents that the FBI purportedly returned to the Afghan security agency. "I don't know where they are, I haven't seen them yet," he told Reuters.
Idema said his defence depended on 500 documents, 300 pictures and 200 videotapes that the FBI had taken from the Afghan authorities after his arrest.
"If I had those documents given back to me I could show every bit of this - I have documents from the Pentagon, back and forth with senior officials at the Pentagon, the CIA, FBI - and of everything else this court would need to know." Idema maintained that after the group was arrested it had been disowned because an Afghan radio station aired accusations that it had tortured prisoners.
"As soon as the word 'torture' hit the Afghan airwaves the American government said: 'Whoa, don't have anything to do with these guys.'"
Idema denied accusations that detainees had been burnt with cigarettes or hung upside down, saying only standard interrogation techniques had been used on the detained men.
While officially disowning Idema and his colleagues, the US military in Kabul admitted last month that they held and questioned an alleged Taleban official handed to them by the vigilante group. The detainee was later released.