Trump pardons soldiers in high-profile war crimes cases

President Donald Trump intervened in three war crimes cases on Saturday, pardoning a former soldier convicted of seconddegree murder and an Army major charged with executing a man suspected of being a Taliban bomb-maker. Trump granted a pardon to Army 1st Lieutenant Clint Lorance, currently serving a 19-year sentence for ordering soldiers to fire on unarmed Afghan civilians, two of whom

Major Mathew Golsteyn died. He also granted a pardon to Major Mathew Golsteyn, charged with killing suspected a bombmaker.

The president also reversed the demotion of Edward Gallagher, a Navy Seal accused of using a knife to kill a teenage Islamic State prisoner in Iraq, and of other killings of civilians. Gallagher was found not guilty of the most serious charges in July but was found guilty of posing for a photo with a human casualty.

Trump has described the men as heroes operating in difficult circumstances and the cases became a cause celebre among conservatives. Critics say the pardons set a bad precedent, signaling the US won’t honour military conventions and international law.

‘‘Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard, long,’’ Trump told reporters earlier this year. ‘‘You know, we teach them how to be great fighters, and then when they fight, sometimes they get, really, treated very unfairly.’’ Trump has granted a number of controversial pardons with political overtones, including conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, and former Bush White House aide Scooter Libby. In the first presidential pardon of a convicted murderer in modern history, he pardoned former Army 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna in May.

Behenna was convicted by a military court of killing an unarmed suspected al Qaeda captive who had been stripped naked before being shot. – USA Today