Trump to review case of soldier charged with Afghan murder
US President Donald Trump said he would review the case of a soldier charged with premeditated murder for killing a man accused of being a bomb-maker in Afghanistan.
“I will be reviewing the case of a US Military hero, Maj Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder,” Mr Trump tweeted.
Maj Golsteyn’s wife Julie and his lawyer were interviewed about the issue earlier in the day on Fox News.
The soldier killed the suspected bomb-maker after he was detained in 2010, and admitted to it to the CIA in 2011 and on Fox in 2016.
His Fox admission prompted the military to reopen the investigation after Maj Golsteyn had been cleared.
His lawyer, Phillip Stackhouse, tweeted that his client was charged with “premeditated murder, a death-penalty offence for allegedly killing a Taliban bomb-maker during combat operations in Marjah”.
A US military spokesman confirmed the charge, but said: “We are not at liberty to discuss details of an ongoing case or investigation to ensure the rights of the accused are protected.”
Mr Stackhouse on Sunday denied charges by the military that Maj Golsteyn “released this Taliban bomb-maker, walked him back to the house and assassinated him”.
“The prosecutor in this case has intimated to me that they have new evidence,” he said.
Maj Golsteyn’s wife denied that her husband had “killed someone in cold blood”.
“There are a lot of words flying around that make this very difficult for us as a family,” Julie Golsteyn said.
Her husband was due to report to Fort Bragg in North Carolina yesterday, she said.
The US has fought a 17-year war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.