Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher dodged the most serious charges the Navy threw at him during his court martial, but his final sentence could be far worse than what the jury originally handed down.
If the convening authority approves the jury's sentence of four months' confinement and a reduction in rank from E7 to E6, Gallagher will be busted down to the rank of E1, according to Navy officials.
SAN DIEGO — The Navy SEAL who raised nearly $750,000 from a community of supporters to successfully fight war crimes charges in a San Diego court-martial is again asking for the public's help for one more round with the Navy.
Chief Eddie Gallagher, through an attorney, is asking the public to help him persuade a Navy admiral to reduce his jury-imposed punishment for posing with the body of a dead Islamic State fighter in 2017.
Specifically, he's looking for other service members who have received punishment for taking photos with dead enemy combatants — and received a lesser sentence.
Navy SEAL Lt. Jacob "Jake" Portier, Gallagher's former commanding officer, is set to go on trial starting Sept. 3, said Portier's attorney Jeremiah Sullivan.
"You will see many of the same witnesses from the Gallagher trial testify at Lt. Portier's trial," Sullivan told Task & Purpose on Friday. "It will be a second acquittal at great expense to the taxpayers."
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - An Iraqi general and a U.S. Marine testifying in the murder trial of a U.S. Navy SEAL said on Thursday they never saw the platoon leader stab a wounded detainee in the neck, disputing the central allegation in the prosecution's war crimes case.
A sworn deposition of Major General Abbas al-Jubouri, videotaped in San Diego earlier this month, was played for the seven-member jury on the second day of defense testimony in the court-martial of Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher.
Navy prosecutors are considering perjury charges for a prosecution witness who confessed to killing the prisoner of war Navy SEAL Chief Edward "Eddie" Gallagher is accused of murdering in shocking testimony last week, the Associated Press
reported late Wednesday.
Former Army Special Forces Maj. Matthew Golsteyn will plead not guilty to a charge of murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed Afghan man whom a tribal leader had identified as a Taliban bomb maker, his attorney said.
Golsteyn will be arraigned on Thursday morning at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Phillip Stackhouse told Task & Purpose.
No date has been set for his trial yet, said Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, a spokesman for U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
