Father of SEAL killed in Yemen demands probe

The father of a Navy SEAL killed during an anti-terrorism raid in Yemen is calling for an investigation into its planning and criticized the Trump administration for its timing.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.— The father of a Navy SEAL killed during an anti-terrorism raid in Yemen is demanding an investigation into its planning and criticized the Trump administration for its timing.

Bill Owens told the Miami Herald in a story published Sunday that he refused to meet with President Donald Trump when both came to Dover Air Force Base to receive the casket carrying his son, Chief Special Warfare Officer William “Ryan” Owens.

“I want an investigation,” said Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran. “The government owes my son an investigation.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday she believes the president would support an investigation.

“I can’t imagine what this father is going through,” she said. “His son is a true American hero, and we should forever be in his son’s debt.”

The younger Owens, a 36-year-old married father of three, was the lone U.S. fatality in the Jan. 27 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound. Some 16 civilians and 14 militants died in the raid, which the Pentagon said was aimed at capturing information on potential alQaida attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

The elder Owens told the Herald he refused to meet with the president because the family had requested a private ceremony.

“I’m sorry; I don’t want to see him,” Owens recalled telling the chaplain who informed him that Trump was on his way from Washington. “I told them I don’t want to meet the president.”

He said he was also troubled by the attack Trump leveled at Khizr and Ghazala Kahn, an American Muslim family whose Army officer son died in Iraq in 2004. The couple had criticized him at the Democratic National Convention.