- Mar 18, 2014
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More than nine months after he was charged with murder, attempted murder and a string of other alleged war crimes tied to a 2017 deployment in Iraq, Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher strolled out of a Naval Base San Diego courtroom a free man, guilty only of appearing in an inappropriate photograph.
Military prosecutors had accused Gallagher, 40, of stabbing to death a seriously wounded Islamic State prisoner of war on May 3, 2017 in a SEAL compound near Mosul, but a military panel composed mostly of combat-tested Marine officers disagreed and acquitted the chief.
Several junior petty officers in Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 also alleged that he had shot at least two civilians from a sniper perch and later tried to cover up his actions, but jurors tossed those charges, too.
Gallagher’s defense team had savaged the witnesses in court as liars bent on usurping a demanding chief they didn’t like and making sure he failed to receive a Silver Star commendation for battlefield heroism.
And in the end a panel of his peers agreed with Chief Gallagher, not a handful of junior SEALs.
Wearing broad smiles, Gallagher’s legal team led by Timothy Parlatore and Marc L. Mukasey emerged from the courthouse shortly after Navy Times learned of the verdict and announced their victory.
“The jury found him not guilty of the murder, not guilty of the stabbing, not guilty of the shootings, not guilty of all those things,” said Parlatore. “They did find him guilty of taking a photograph with a dead terrorist, which we admitted from the beginning he was in that photograph.”
Mukasey called it a “huge victory, a huge weight off the Gallaghers and a huge victory for justice.”
More at the link: SEAL war crimes suspect not guilty on murder charge
Military prosecutors had accused Gallagher, 40, of stabbing to death a seriously wounded Islamic State prisoner of war on May 3, 2017 in a SEAL compound near Mosul, but a military panel composed mostly of combat-tested Marine officers disagreed and acquitted the chief.
Several junior petty officers in Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 also alleged that he had shot at least two civilians from a sniper perch and later tried to cover up his actions, but jurors tossed those charges, too.
Gallagher’s defense team had savaged the witnesses in court as liars bent on usurping a demanding chief they didn’t like and making sure he failed to receive a Silver Star commendation for battlefield heroism.
And in the end a panel of his peers agreed with Chief Gallagher, not a handful of junior SEALs.
Wearing broad smiles, Gallagher’s legal team led by Timothy Parlatore and Marc L. Mukasey emerged from the courthouse shortly after Navy Times learned of the verdict and announced their victory.
“The jury found him not guilty of the murder, not guilty of the stabbing, not guilty of the shootings, not guilty of all those things,” said Parlatore. “They did find him guilty of taking a photograph with a dead terrorist, which we admitted from the beginning he was in that photograph.”
Mukasey called it a “huge victory, a huge weight off the Gallaghers and a huge victory for justice.”
More at the link: SEAL war crimes suspect not guilty on murder charge
