LF: Bowe Bergdahl should NOT go to prison for 'deserting' his unit before he was captured by the Taliban, recommends preliminary military hearing

Title: Bowe Bergdahl should NOT go to prison for 'deserting' his unit before he was captured by the Taliban, recommends preliminary military hearing
Source: Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... commends-no-jail-Bergdahl.html
Published: Oct 10, 2015
Author: Dailymail.com Reporter and Reuters and A
Post Date: 2015-10-10 18:14:40 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 3589
Comments: 29

An Army officer is recommending that Sgt Bowe Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of jail time for leaving his post in Afghanistan, his lawyer said Saturday.

In a memorandum issued on Friday, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Visger, the presiding officer at the Article 32 hearing last month in San Antonio, recommended 'non-judicial punishment' for Bergdahl.

Military prosecutors told the two-day hearing Bergdahl should be held accountable because he intended to desert his post and said his actions fundamentally altered US operations in Afghanistan.

Military officials were not immediately available for comment about that the man who was held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years after leaving his post in 2009.

COULD BERGDAHL HAVE BEEN EXECUTED AS TRUMP WISHED?

Donald Trump is correct in principle but not in practice: Bergdahl could have faced the death penalty - but 30 years ago he was just as unlikely to as today.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice - military law - misbehavior before the enemy can be a capital crime, as can desertion, in time of war.

But the last time the punishment was used was in World War II when Eddie Slovik was executed. Even then, 48 out of 49 death penalties for desertion were commuted - out of an estimated 20,000 desertion cases.

No servicemen or women have faced a capital charge since 1948 for either offense, meaning that both Korean and Vietnam, in which vastly more US forces were deployed than in Iraq or Afghanistan, went by without a death penalty case.

The rarity of the use of the punishment is shown by the fact that before Slovik's death, which was even at the time highly controversial, the last execution for desertion was during the Civil War.

Defense attorney Eugene Fidell said Visger has decided a civilian system should handle Bergdahl's case.

It limits the maximum punishment to a reduction of rank, a bad conduct discharge and a short jail term, though that isn't being sought, Fidell said.

Bergdahl, 29, was charged earlier this year with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the more serious offense of misbehavior.

General Robert Abrams, the commanding general of US Army Forces Command, will ultimately decide whether the case should be referred to a court-martial.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 15 punishments include reduction of one grade in rank or a requirement that the soldier perform additional duties.

Major General Kenneth Dahl, who led the military's investigation into Bergdahl's disappearance and capture, told last month's hearing Bergdahl should not be imprisoned, saying he was not a Taliban sympathizer.

Dahl characterized Bergdahl as an unrealistically idealistic soldier who left his post to report concerns about his unit's leadership to a general at another base.

Bergdahl disappeared on June 30, 2009, from Combat Outpost Mest-Lalak in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and was captured by the Taliban, where he suffered years of abuse and torture.

He was freed five years later in a prisoner swap that sent five Taliban leaders who were being held at Guantanamo to Qatar.

His commanding officers said the 45-day search for Bergdahl put soldiers in danger.

During a Thursday speech at the Treasure Island hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Bergdahl should face execution for leaving his post.

Trump called Bergdahl a 'no good traitor,' and said he would have been shot if it was 30 years ago.