RALEIGH - Disguised CIA agents, stiff-backed Army officers and doctors are testifying at the assault trial of former agency paramilitary operative David Passaro. But perhaps the most captivating witness is a college student in khakis, a serious-minded Afghan-American named Said Hyder Akbar.

Akbar, 21, left Afghanistan and flew to Raleigh for Passaro's trial because he played a key role in the life and death of Abdul Wali: Akbar helped deliver Wali to a remote U.S. Army base in Afghanistan one hot June day three years ago, and assured him he'd be OK in American custody. Three days later, Akbar returned to collect Wali's corpse.

The government has charged Passaro, 40, a former Army Special Forces soldier from Lillington, with beating Wali while questioning him about rocket attacks.

Akbar's unusual story -- born in Afghanistan, reared in California, mingling with Afghanistan's top leaders -- already is the subject of radio documentaries and his memoir, published last year. He has launched an Afghan charity and is planning a cable television show about his life.

Now, Akbar has a starring role in Passaro's trial, the first prosecution of a CIA worker on charges of detainee abuse. That stands to increase his celebrity, just two months before the release of the paperback version of his book, "Come Back to Afghanistan."

"He's one of the most extraordinary young people I've ever met," said Gillian Blake of New York City, Akbar's book editor. "He's incredibly smart, worldly and erudite for somebody his age. He's going to end up the president of something -- the U.N. or Afghanistan."

Defense lawyers suggested at trial that Akbar was exploiting his role in the case for profit.

"Do you hope that your book will sell better after this case?" Passaro's lead defense lawyer, Joseph Gilbert, asked Akbar in court Wednesday.

"Not really," Akbar replied. "Not through something like this."

Others involved in the trial have praised Akbar's poise and devotion to his homeland.

"Very smart," Brian Halstead, a former Special Forces officer, said unprompted on the stand Wednesday. "He's the answer to Afghanistan. He's what you hope everybody there will be like."

Another scheduled prosecution witness, Dr. Reinhard Motte of Miami, told Akbar during a break, "You have a real chance to make a difference."

Akbar says he wants to work for the United Nations to rebuild his native country.

"Politics in Afghanistan is not like in the United States," he said in a brief interview Wednesday. "You don't go to college, work in Washington for a while, and then run for Congress or something. I don't really have a plan. I'm going to go back and stick it out. We'll see what happens."

First, though, Akbar has a year left at Yale University, where he studies economics and political science.

American-bred

Hyder Akbar was born in Afghanistan, but his ruling-class family fled to California when he was too young to remember. He grew up the youngest of four children in Oakland, where his father, Said Fazel Akbar, owned a hip-hop clothing store.

After the U.S. military deposed Afghanistan's Taliban rulers in 2001, President Hamid Karzai called the elder Akbar home to serve as his spokesman. Fazel Akbar later became governor of volatile Kunar province in the northeast, next to Pakistan.

Akbar remained in California but spent summers with his father, rubbing elbows with President Karzai and witnessing Afghanistan's physical reconstruction and the flowering of its tentative democracy.

One day in June 2003, Akbar's role as his father's unofficial aide and adviser put him in the paths of Wali and Passaro.

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