Army Hearing Officer Recommends No Jail for Bergdahl

Eugene Fidell says that would allow Bergdahl to continue receiving badly needed treatment for mental and physical injuries suffered while a prisoner of war.

Fidell also said Visger, who presided over last month’s hearing in Texas, recommended that there be no prison time or punitive discharge against Bergdahl. “Let me just say, we need to review the system of justice and get an assessment of it before I condemn it”.

If the case against Sgt. Bergdahl is referred to a court-martial, we will have to pursue the matter closely, he added.

An Army officer is recommending that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of jail time for leaving his post in Afghanistan, his lawyer said Saturday.

It limits the maximum punishment to reduction in rank, a bad-conduct discharge and a term of up to a year in prison.

The Taliban captured Bergdahl, 29, in 2009 after he allegedly abandoned his Army post during a tour of Afghanistan.

In a memorandum issued on Friday, Lt. Col. Mark Visger, the presiding officer at the so-called Article 32 hearing last month in San Antonio, recommended “non-judicial punishment” for Bergdahl, his defense lawyers said, according to Reuters.

Military prosecutors charged Bergdahl in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, a charge that could carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. He returned home a year ago after President Obama traded five high-ranking Taliban commanders detained at Guantanamo Bay for him, a move that drew sharp rebukes, especially from Republicans.

Gen. Robert B. Abrams, chief of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., will decide what charges the sergeant faces. It is ultimately Abrams decision whether Bergdahl faces a court martial or not.