Bowe Bergdahl Enters No Plea at Arraignment

Members of the Taliban captured Bergdahl shortly after he walked off his Army post, and the insurgent group held him prisoner for five years, which is the longest any American has ever survived as a prisoner of the Taliban. He wouldn’t enter a plea and didn’t decide whether he wants to face a court-martial with a jury or with just a judge.

His decision to voluntarily leave the base has raised questions about what happened that night, and eventually led to Bergdahl being formally charged with “desertion and misbehavior before the enemy” earlier this year. The Pentagon’s inspector general on December 9, 2015, has told a House panel investigating the five Taliban Guantanamo Bay detainees released in exchange for Bergdahl that it found no evidence that a ransom was ever attempted or paid to secure the soldier’s release.

“The accused wishes to defer for reflection”, Bergdahl’s attorney, Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt said, according to Reuters.

The hearing is the first step in Bergdahl’s prosecution before a general courts martial.

Bergdahl, 29, was arraigned during a short hearing on Tuesday.

The next scheduled hearing is set for January 12 at Fort Bragg. In October, Bergdahl’s lawyer said no jail time had been recommended.

The US Army Forces Command announced last week the charges against Bergdahl had been referred for trial by general court-martial. The second offense, “desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty”, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

At the time, Bergdahl’s defense attorney, Eugene Fidell, said in a statement that the defense team “hoped the case would not go in this direction”. In the conversations, Bergdahl defends his actions, saying he walked off base in order to bring attention to leadership issues that he felt were putting his unit in danger.

Bergdahl hasn’t talked publicly about what happened, but over the past several months, he spoke extensively with screenwriter Mark Boal, who shared about 25 hours of the recorded interviews with Sarah Koenig for her popular podcast, “Serial”. In the season premiere, Bergdahl said that he had “this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that, you know, I was the real thing. I was capable of being what I appeared to be”, Bergdahl said.