The hearing begins Thursday and could last several days.
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Military prosecutors on Thursday will lay out their case against U.S. Army Sgt.
Legal experts say Bergdahl’s lawyers are likely to argue his years of being held captive by the Taliban were punishment enough.
Bergdahl has lived in San Antonio and worked on post at Fort Sam Houston in relative anonymity for more than a year. He was a prisoner for five years before being released in an exchange for five Taliban commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bergdahl faces a desertion charge and misbehavior before the enemy, a rarely-used charge.
Doebbler says she’s not attending the military hearing, but another mother, Sondra Andrews, hopes for a front row seat. The hearing will review the charges against Bergdahl and determine if there is probable cause to conclude that Bergdahl committed any offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and, if he did, whether a court-martial would have jurisdiction over the case. Bergdahl also may seek to protect his back pay and veteran’s benefits by accepting prison time rather than a dishonorable discharge.
This undated file image provided by the U.S. Army shows Sgt.
Bergdahl has not been placed under arrest or any form of confinement.
Some soldiers who served with the sergeant claim he walked off the base as a deserter, although other soldiers in his unit said Bergdahl sometime talked of wanting to get off the base just so he could walk around the mountainous countryside.
Fidell has expressed concern that negative publicity which has been highly critical of Bergdahl could influence how the case is resolved.
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Fidell said he plans to call witnesses, but he declined to say whether Bergdahl would be among them. The Republican party and some Democrats have long criticized the prisoner swap as politically motivated and a flagrant violation of U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists. “You have a soldier who, apparently, from what we know from the evidence, abandoned his combat outpost leaving his equipment behind and put himself, at best, in a position where he was vulnerable to capture by the enemy”. Abrams will ultimately decide whether to send the case to a court-martial, which is the military equivalent of a civilian trial.
