The Army officer who presided over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s preliminary hearing last month has recommended that he should not face any jail time or a punitive discharge for charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, the sergeant’s lawyers said.
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Defense attorneys say Lt. Col. Mark Visger has decided Bergdahl’s case should go to a military system similar to civilian courts that handle misdemeanor charges. During that hearing, the lead military investigator in the case said he didn’t believe Sgt. Bergdahl should be jailed.
They should be releasing Col. Visger’s report, they should be releasing Gen. Dahl’s report, they should be releasing Sgt. Bergdahl’s 371-page transcript of his interrogation by Gen. Dahl, I mean, all of this stuff should be released.
Gen. Kenneth Dahl, who was charged with investigating Bergdahl’s 2009 capture by the Taliban, testified last month that the now-29-year-old soldier should not be imprisoned for his actions. Visger submitted his recommendations in a report Monday, although the Army has yet to disclose its contents, and no deadline has been made public for Abrams’ decision, the Associated Press reported Saturday. The United States recovered him in May 2014 in a controversial deal in which five Taliban detainees were released from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the more serious offense of misbehavior.
[Bowe Bergdahl’s Army investigation just proceeded to the next step, lawyer says].
“As legal action is ongoing, we continue to maintain careful respect for the military-judicial process, the rights of the accused, and ensuring the case’s fairness and impartiality”, Boyce said.
Bergdahl’s defense team has asked that he be handled instead by Article 15, or “non-judicial punishment”, claiming that he simply left to report a problem in his chain of command. He and several others have said previously that Bergdahl should get the maximum punishment available.
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Attorney Eugene Fidell addresses the media at the conclusion of the… “He ran an orderly – and as far as his powers are concerned – fair hearing”. “In a way, that’s a larger issue than the disposition of these charges against this soldier”.
