Bowe Bergdahl, aka Robert Bowdrie Bergdahl, an Army Sgt. accused of deserting, had his trial delayed until a new president is sworn in. Mr. Bergdahl will have his day in court in early February because of a substantive release of documents in connection with the investigation and scheduling conflicts.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will be trialed for deserting his post after President Barack Obama leaves office. This week, Judge Col. Jeffery Nance decided to move Bergdahl’s trial date from August 8, 2016 to February 6, 2017 – which means after either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump have taken the highest office in the land.
The trial will be held at Fort Bragg, which is one of the largest United States Army installations in the world, and is located in Cumberland, Hoke, Harnett and Moore counties, North Carolina.
The trial is being postponed for two reasons: The first involves schedule conflicts. The second has to do with a compilation of 1.5 million pages of documents in connection with the investigation into the capture and detention of Bergdahl. The judge decided to give the lawyers representing Mr. Bergdahl more time to consult the documents.
Some reports claim that the documents show that he was diagnosed with a schizotypal personality disorder when he left the post and that he was discharged from the Coast Guard after suffering a panic attack. The next scheduled motions hearing for the case will be July 7-8, according to a statement issued by the Army.
“Bergdahl is a United States Army soldier who was held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan and Pakistan from June 2009 until his release in May 2014. The circumstances under which Bergdahl went missing and how he was captured by the Taliban have since become subjects of intense media scrutiny.
Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014, as part of a prisoner exchange for five Taliban members who were being held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. This exchange and the ceremony announcing it, held in the White House Rose Garden, generated controversy in the United States. On December 14, 2015, the U.S. Army announced that Bergdahl would be tried by general court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.”
While Mrs. Clinton has not commented on the controversies surrounding Mr. Bergdahl, Trump suggested that he should be thrown from a plane and added that he was a “traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed.”
Attorney Army Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt, who is representing Bergdahl, wrote a letter to Mr. Trump requesting a meeting to discuss his disturbing comments about his client. The letter said:
“I request to interview you as soon as possible about your comments about Sergeant Bergdahl during frequent appearances in front of large audiences in advance of his court-martial.”
According to reports, Bergdahl, who is currently working at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, is constantly receiving death threats.
