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December 28, 2019New revelations in the United States on Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, accused of war crimes and pardoned by Donald Trump. The veterans who served with him in Iraq, in video testimonials reported by the New York Times (Nyt), call him a "toxic" person, a "scary villain" who could "kill anyone who moved".
Shocking statements that could endanger the tycoon, which hosted Gallagher and his wife last weekend at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is spending the Christmas holidays.
Gallagher's colleagues, in the video testimonials provided to Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigators who investigate for war crimes and published by the NYT, accuse the Navy Seal of shooting a 12-year-old boy and claim that he targeted civilians. "He's a scary villain," says Craig Miller, one of the most experienced members of Team 7 of the Alpha platoon, which was led by Gallagher. "It looked like he was absolutely capable of killing anyone who moved," said another member of the platoon, identified by the New York newspaper as Corey Scott.
Gallagher denies the accusations, claiming that the members of the platoon only want to muddy him because he does not live up to his performances. "My first reaction to seeing the videos was of surprise and disgust that they were able to make up obvious lies about me, but I quickly realized that they were frightened that the truth about the cowardly way they acted on duty would come out," is the Navy Seal's statement sent to the New York Times by his attorney.
Sniper and physician, now 40 years old, was originally charged with premeditated murder for stabbing a 17-year-old Islamic State fighter captured to death in May 2017 in Iraq. In 2019, during the trial, the case rebounded in the conservative media and Trump expressed support for it. Last March the US president intervened to get Gallagher out of prison and transfer him to a Navy hospital, where he had more freedom. In July, the Navy Seal was acquitted of murder by a military jury, but convicted of posing for a photo next to the body of the ISIS fighter. It was then demoted, but the tycoon intervened again to cancel that move with a tweet.
Trump's intervention came while in the US media filtered the news that the then Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, had threatened to resign precisely for this case, an indiscretion that Spencer himself denied in November: "I need a formal order to to act, "he told reporters. On November 24 Spencer was torpedoed precisely for the dispute related to Gallagher. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has launched an investigation and platoon members have been called to testify.