This smells funny.

I don't really have a working theory as to what happened here, whether somebody at the prison let this guy out to keep him from testifying or the military released him or disappeared him into the archipelago gulag, or the CIA.... But this just doesn't smell right to me.

You want me to believe that one of Bin Laden's top lieutenants was allowed to escape from a US run detention facility? And it just so happens that he is the only corroborating witness who can testify about the torture allegations which the defense lawyer contends was ordered by the CIA?

A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.

Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States......

In earlier cases of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, the alleged victims either were dead or unidentified. Other alleged victims in Driver's case also cannot testify. One was released from custody and cannot be found, and the other has died.

Maybe I'm overly suspicious, but I just don't buy it.

UPDATE: Follow up story today telling me how I already knew all this. Apparently, there was a video released in which he and three other prisoners detailed their escape. The article also quotes a security consultant who tells me to expect Al-Farouq to turn up in Iraq(surprise.) If this is an intel op, this second story would come right out of the playbook. I still think there are too many coincidences in this story. If the military/intel folks weren't often caught lying, I would be more inclined to believe them.