The lawyers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have lodged a new complaint in his controversial desertion case, saying that the four-star general overseeing the soldier’s court-martial should be disqualified after he burned more than 100 letters related to the case.
Abrams’s “inexcusable and baffling conduct plainly disqualifies him” from overseeing the case, the lawyers alleged. It also requires that his decision to refer Bergdahl to a general court-martial — the most serious kind the military holds — be vacated, they added.
“There is no substitute for the letters GEN Abrams destroyed,” the defense team argued in a motion to disqualify Abrams. Their loss “prevents both the Court and the defense from knowing precisely how many such letters there were, what they actually said and, importantly, who wrote them and how we may get in touch with those individuals. This damage is irreparable.”
A spokesman for Forces Command, Paul Boyce, characterized the Bergdahl team’s new filing as one in an “ongoing series of legal motions” made by both the defense and prosecution in the case. The next hearing in the case will be held Aug. 22 at Fort Bragg, while the trial is expected to start in February, he said.
Bergdahl, 30, faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, the latter of which can carry up to a life sentence. He has said in interviews with both Army authorities and filmmaker Mark Boal that he did so because he wanted to expose problems in his unit and that he planned to travel about 20 miles on foot to a larger base nearby.
Bergdahl’s lawyers also said Abrams should be disqualified from overseeing the case because of his earlier ties to the case while serving as the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter after Bergdahl was recovered by the U.S. government in May 2014.
“An officer who has had extensive prior personal involvement in a politically-charged controversy should not serve as a CA,” the filing said, using an acronym for convening authority. “The Army must find some other commander to ‘own and operate’ the military justice for this case.”
Bergdahl’s lawyers previously sought last year to have Gen. Mark A. Milley from overseeing the case after he was selected as the Army’s new chief. Milley took over his current job a year ago and was replaced by Abrams as both the commanding general of Forces Command and the convening authority of Bergdahl’s case.
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