Blake Hall
Eugene Fidel, Bowe Bergdahl’s attorney, told the Washington Post Wednesday that the Army sergeant rescued last year after five years in Taliban captivity, has been charged with desertion and misbehavior.
The charges stem from articles 85 and 99 of the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice.
This from the Washington Post:
Article 85, desertion, can be used to punish a variety of offenses, including anyone who “quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service.” The sentence for those convicted can include death, although that is highly uncommon and has not occurred since 1944, when Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed by a firing squad after running away from combat duty in France.
Article 99, misbehavior before the enemy, is used to charge a service member who has run away in the face of the enemy, abandoned his unit, cast aside his weapon or ammunition or willfully failed “to do his utmost to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy any enemy troops, combatants, vessels, aircraft, or any other thing, which it is his duty so to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy.”
According to Reuters, the trial is slate to begin April 22 in San Antonio, Texas.
Believed to have grown disillusioned by the U.S.’s presence in Afghanistan, Bergdahl went missing from his base in Paktika province on June 30, 2009. After five years he was released by his captors — the Haqqani network, insurgents affiliated with the Taliban — in a deal for five Taliban officials that was brokered by the nation of Qatar and the White House.