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US inmate fears death by rioters at Kabul jail
Edward Caraballo said that rioting inmates were holding him in his cell and had threatened to cut off his head.
One of the three Americans detained at Kabul's main prison said on Wednesday that rioting inmates were holding him in his cell and had threatened to cut off his head.
Speaking to the agency by mobile phone, Edward Caraballo said the prisoners made the threat on Tuesday, but that they had since backed off.
"Now they are afraid of it appearing that they've kidnapped me, so they're backing off," he said in an interview from his cell in Pulicharki prison.
"Hopefully the situation will cool down so I can walk out of here ... I just want to get out of here."
Caraballo, from New York, is one of three Americans held at the prison, where inmates, reportedly incited by Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, rioted late on Saturday and still retain control of much of the jail. At least five inmates have died in the uprising.
He is serving a two-year sentence after he was arrested in July 2004, along with Jonathan Idema and Brent Bennett, and accused of running a private jail in Kabul as part of a freelance hunt for terrorists.
Caraballo claims he is a journalist and had believed he was chronicling a legitimate counter-terror operation.
He said that prior to the riot and after a falling out with Idema, he had been moved to Block One of the prison, where hundreds of other criminals are housed.
Caraballo said all the doors inside Block One had been ripped down and that prisoners were moving around freely inside, and that they had told him to stay in his cell.
