{"id":95331,"date":"2019-11-18T09:07:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T16:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95331"},"modified":"2019-11-18T09:07:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T16:07:54","slug":"trump-pardons-army-officers-restores-navy-seals-rank-in-war-crimes-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/18\/trump-pardons-army-officers-restores-navy-seals-rank-in-war-crimes-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump pardons Army officers, restores Navy SEAL’s rank in war crimes cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idrees Ali CourtesyReuters<\/a> <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned\ntwo Army officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and restored the rank of\na Navy SEAL platoon commander who was demoted for actions in Iraq, a move\ncritics have said would undermine military justice and send a message that\nbattlefield atrocities will be tolerated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House said in a statement Trump granted full pardons to First\nLieutenant Clint Lorance and Major Mathew Golsteyn, and ordered that the rank\nEdward Gallagher held before he was convicted in a military trial this year be\nrestored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than two hundred years, presidents have used their authority\nto offer second chances to deserving individuals, including those in uniform\nwho have served our country. These actions are in keeping with this long\nhistory,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Department of Defense has confidence in\nthe military justice system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President is part of the military justice system as the\nCommander-in-Chief and has the authority to weigh in on matters of this\nnature,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent weeks, Pentagon officials had spoken with Trump about the\ncases, provided facts and emphasized the due process built into the military\njustice system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 2013, prosecutors accused Lorance of illegally\nordering the fatal shootings of two men on motorcycles while on patrol in\nAfghanistan\u2019s Kandahar province. He was found guilty of two counts of murder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Last year, Golsteyn, an Army Green Beret, was charged\nwith murdering an Afghan man during a 2010 deployment to Afghanistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gallagher, a decorated SEAL team platoon leader, was\naccused of committing various war crimes while deployed in Iraq in 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, a military jury acquitted him of murdering a captured Islamic\nState fighter by stabbing the wounded prisoner in the neck, but it convicted\nhim of illegally posing with the detainee\u2019s corpse. That had led to his rank\nbeing reduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on honesty and transparency\nin healthcare prices inside the Roosevelt Room at the White House in\nWashington, U.S., November 15, 2019. REUTERS\/Tom Brenner<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Golsteyn received word of his pardon from Trump, who spoke with him by\ntelephone for several minutes, Golsteyn\u2019s attorney Phillip Stackhouse said in a\nstatement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our family is profoundly grateful for the president\u2019s action. We have\nlived in constant fear of this runaway prosecution,\u201d Golsteyn was quoted saying\nin the statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the president\u2019s action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this utterly shameful use of presidential powers, Trump has sent a\nclear message of disrespect for law, morality, the military justice system, and\nthose in the military who abide by the laws of war,\u201d Hina Shamsi, director of\nthe ACLU\u2019s National Security Project, said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In May, Trump talked about how he was considering\npardons for U.S. troops charged with war crimes, a move he acknowledged would\nbe controversial but that he said was justified because they had been treated\nunfairly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The overwhelming majority of pardons are granted to\npeople who have already been convicted and served time for a federal offense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But presidents have occasionally granted pardons\npreemptively to individuals accused of or suspected of a crime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The most famous such case was the blanket pardon\nPresident Gerald Ford bestowed on his predecessor, Richard Nixon, after Nixon\u2019s\nresignation during the Watergate scandal in 1974. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Sandra Maler\nand Daniel Wallis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Standards:<\/em>The Thomson\nReuters Trust Principles.<\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idrees Ali CourtesyReuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned two Army officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and restored the rank of a Navy SEAL platoon commander who was demoted for actions in Iraq, a move critics have said would undermine military justice and send a message that battlefield atrocities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","category-law-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}