US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior US official said on Sunday.
Following the report which was published by The New York Times, two prominent US senators insisted that the issue should be fully investigated by the Army.
"The Army will look at this very carefully," Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee said.
"They will make judgements, they will evaluate it (Bergdahl's account of his capture) and if he needs to be tried in a military court, he will be." "We weren't there," said Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
"We have nobody who was on the inside, so we don't know exactly what happened in his life over the last several years, except we do know he was captured and he has been in the Taliban's hands for these number of years."
Bergdahl was returned to the US military in exchange for the release of five Taliban militants from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The deal to swap Bergdahl, who was held by the Taliban for five years in Afghanistan, was brokered by the Obama White House without consulting Congress.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who initially praised Bergdahl's release have since backed off amid an outcry over the exchange, including questions about whether he walked away from his post before he was captured.
Meanwhile, military doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre say that while Bergdahl is physically able to travel he's not yet emotionally prepared to be reunited with his family.
He has not yet spoken to his family and it's unclear when he may get to go home.
APTN