Bowe Bergdahl, Facing Desertion Trial, Asks Obama for Pardon [View all]

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Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former American prisoner of war in Afghanistan who was freed in a 2014 swap for five Taliban detainees, has asked President Obama to pardon him before leaving the White House to President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has called the soldier “a no-good traitor who should have been executed.”

After the presidential election, Sergeant Bergdahl’s legal team submitted copies of a clemency application to the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon, according to White House and Justice Department officials.

It requested a pre-emptive pardon that would avert Sergeant Bergdahl’s court-martial trial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy that endangered fellow soldiers. The trial is scheduled to begin on April 18.

Sergeant Bergdahl left his outpost in Afghanistan without permission in 2009 and was captured by militants, prompting a dangerous but fruitless search. His captors held him in brutal conditions for five years, including locking him in a cage and in darkness for lengthy periods.

The Obama administration eventually secured his release in exchange for sending five high-level Taliban detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison to Qatar, which agreed to monitor them and not let them travel.

Read more: http://nyti.ms/2gWw98u

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