Washington (AFP) - Secretary of State John Kerry defended Sunday the swap of five Guantanamo detainees for American Bowe Bergdahl, amid reports the captive US soldier was kept at times in a metal cage and in total darkness.
Kerry doubled down on President Barack Obama's controversial decision to make the trade in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, who the top US diplomat said was at risk of being tortured by his captors.
"It would have been offensive and incomprehensible to consciously leave an American behind, no matter what, to leave an American behind in the hands of people who would torture him, cut off his head, do any number of things," Kerry told CNN's State of the Union program.
Bergdahl was released to US troops in Afghanistan last Saturday in exchange for the five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Kerry made his remarks Sunday -- his first on the controversial prisoner exchange -- amid a news report about the grim conditions in which Bergdahl was held while a hostage in Afghanistan.
The New York Times wrote that the army sergeant told medical officials that he was kept in total darkness in a metal cage for weeks, as punishment for trying to escape.
Bergdahl, who is receiving medical treatment at an army facility in Landstuhl, Germany, is healing physically, but is still emotionally too fragile to be reunited with his relatives, said the daily, citing anonymous US officials who have been briefed on his condition.
The newspaper also reported that Bergdahl has had no access to news media and is unaware of the controversy raging in the United States about whether the administration put US security at risk by freeing the Taliban inmates.
Kerry said the freed prisoners, who have been released to the government of Qatar, are unlikely go back on their word to take up the struggle again against the US. Reportedly, they already have.
"I'm not telling you that they don't have some ability sought some point to go back and get involved. But they also have an ability to get killed doing that," he told CNN.
"I don't think anybody should doubt the capacity of the United States of America to protect Americans. Nobody."
But the decision has garnered criticism, even from Obama's Democratic party.
