Bergdahl May Face Life Sentence Over Desertion
KABUL: (MEP) U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and became a Taliban prisoner for five years, will face court-martial with a potential life sentence on charges of desertion and endangering U.S. troops, the Army said on Monday.
Bergdahl, 29, was charged earlier this year and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the more serious offense of endangering troops who searched for him in lawless areas of Afghanistan after his disappearance in 2009.
In ordering the court martial on Monday, Army General Robert Abrams did not follow the recommendation of a preliminary hearing which, according to Bergdahl’s lawyer, called for Bergdahl to face a proceeding that could impose a potential maximum penalty of a year in confinement.
Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said the defense team “had hoped the case would not go in this direction.”
He also urged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called Bergdahl a “dirty, rotten traitor,” to “cease his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation against our client.”
The official search for Bergdahl lasted 45 days, but the United States spent years trying to determine his whereabouts and bring him home.
He was freed in a prisoner swap in May 2014 that sent five Taliban leaders who were being held at Guantanamo to Qatar, where they had to remain for a year. The deal drew heavy criticism from Republicans.
Bergdahl disappeared on foot on June 30, 2009, from Combat Outpost Mest-Malak in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and was subsequently captured by the Taliban.
U.S. military prosecutors said at the hearing in September, that Bergdahl snuck away from his post under the cover of night on a plan that was weeks in the making.
They said there was sufficient evidence to hold him for trial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
(REUTERS)
