KABUL, July 22: US-led coalition forces admitted on Thursday they had taken a detainee from a US citizen on trial in Afghanistan for running a freelance counter-terror operation, but denied he had been working for the US military.

The US military admission comes a day after the accused, Jonathan K. Idema, appeared in court in Kabul claiming that he was working with the full knowledge of the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior US defence department officials.

"We did receive a detainee from Mr Idema or his party. The reason we received this person was that we believed that he was someone that we had identified as a potential terrorist and we wanted him for questioning," said Major Jon Siepmann, spokesman for the coalition forces.

Siepmann said that US-led forces took the suspect off Idema in the belief that he was a wanted terrorist.

"We continue to hunt down terrorists throughout this country and if we can take them out of the fight we do that and that is what we believed we were doing," he said.

Idema and two other US citizens are on trial here for setting up an unlicensed jail and a torture chamber and holding eight Afghan citizens in captivity without the permission of either Afghan or US authorities.

Prior to Idema's claim in court on Wednesday, both the US State Department and the military in Afghanistan had issued repeated denials that Idema had any ties with the US government.

"The public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him," said a statement.

Siepmann said US-led forces had taken the terror suspect from Idema's group for questioning but after holding him in detention for a month had ascertained that he was not the militant they were hunting.

"We probably identified Mr Idema as questionable the minute he turned up, and the additional information that this individual was not who Mr Idema said he was just added to it," said Siepmann.

The US-military put out an advisory that Idema did not work for the coalition after finding out the detainee was innocent, Siepman added.

Idema said on Wednesday he had detained the Taliban intelligence chief in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and passed him to the FBI for questioning and had handed prisoners to US coalition headquarters on several occasions.-AFP