A federal judge on Tuesday wiped out the conviction and sentence of Bowe Bergdahl, the former Army sergeant who walked off a base in Afghanistan in 2009 only to be held captive by the Taliban for five years, and whose release in a prisoner swap prompted intense controversy.
In a 63-page ruling, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia vacated all the court-martial proceedings against Sergeant Bergdahl after October 2017. At the time, the military judge in the case, Jeffery R. Nance, then an Army colonel, applied for a job with the Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump, a step he did not disclose. Mr. Trump had repeatedly railed against the sergeant, calling him a traitor and suggesting that he be executed.
The ruling could lead to a second trial before a new judge. In pleading guilty to desertion and to endangering the American troops sent to search for him at his court-martial, Sergeant Bergdahl had his rank reduced to private and was dishonorably discharged.
Eugene R. Fidell, a lawyer for Sergeant Bergdahl, called the decision “an important victory,” but said it was not yet clear how the military or his client would proceed, including whether either side will appeal.
The defense could challenge a portion of Judge Walton’s ruling in which he rejected its argument that the entire case should be thrown out because of the comments by Mr. Trump.
Colonel Nance had earlier rejected a similar motion, and he had submitted that ruling as a writing sample with his job application at the Justice Department. Judge Walton said those circumstances raised the appearance of potential bias that required redoing the case.
The case, he said, presented “a unique situation where the military judge might be inclined to appeal to the president’s expressed interest in the plaintiff’s conviction and punishment when applying” for a job as an immigration judge.
In the spring, Judge Walton had issued a terse preliminary order and said he would issue a written opinion within 60 days “absent extraordinary circumstances,” but that deadline had come and gone. His opinion on Tuesday was accompanied by a final order that can be appealed.
In 2009, Sergeant Bergdahl left his outpost in Afghanistan without permission, intending to hike to another military post and report perceived wrongdoing at his unit. A sanity board later found that he had been suffering from a “severe mental disease or defect” at the time.
Hours later, he was captured by militants, prompting a dangerous but fruitless search. His captors held him in brutal conditions for five years, locking him in a cage and in the dark for lengthy periods and beating him with cables.
In 2014, the Obama administration secured his release in exchange for sending five high-level Taliban detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba to Qatar. Several later took part in peace talks with the Trump administration over ending the Afghanistan war.
The sergeant’s…
2023-07-25 18:06:42
Original from www.nytimes.com
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