United States: conviction overturned for soldier Bergdahl, ex-Taliban captive

The dismissal from the US army of Bowe Bergdahl, former captive of the Taliban for five years in Afghanistan after deserting his post, was canceled Tuesday, July 25 by a judge, the latest twist in a controversial case.

U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl leaving the Fort Bragg Military Courthouse on the fourth day of his sentencing proceedings, October 30, 2017. GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

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A federal judge in Washington ruled in a court decision seen by AFP that the November 2017 military ruling was tainted by a conflict of interest and therefore invalid.

US soldier Bowe Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban after surreptitiously leaving his base near the Pakistani border on June 30, 2009. He had been held captive for five years before being released in a prisoner exchange.

The affair had deepened divisions over the war in Afghanistan, some seeing Bergdahl as a victim of a protracted conflict, while others saw him as a traitor who had endangered the soldiers who went looking for him.

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, captured by the Taliban on June 30, 2009, appeared in a Manba al-Jihad video on December 7, 2010. AFP PHOTO HANDOUT-INTELCENTER"

"The impartiality of the judge questioned"

And conservatives had criticized Barack Obama for making too great a concession by agreeing to release five Taliban executives detained in Guantanamo to obtain his release in 2014. Donald Trump, then a 2016 presidential candidate, called him a "rotten dirty traitor" who deserved to be executed.

Sergeant Bergdahl pleaded guilty at court martial in 2017 to desertion and endangering the lives of his fellow combatants. At the end of this trial, a military judge decided to dismiss Sergeant Bergdahl, then 31, from the ranks of the army for dereliction of honour, without sentencing him to prison.

But this military judge, Jeffery Nance, was then a candidate for a position in the federal administration with Donald Trump at its head.

The federal judge ruled Tuesday that "the military judge (could) have been induced to satisfy the president's expressed desire to convict and punish him" in order to obtain the position, and therefore that "the impartiality of the judge can reasonably be questioned," thus annulling his judgment.

This is an "important victory" for Bowe Bergdahl, his lawyer Eugene Fidell told the New York Times, adding that he did not really know what the next steps might be in this case.

(With AFP

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  • United States
  • Defense
  • Afghanistan
  • Justice
  • Taliban
  • Guantanamo