Navy SEAL acquitted in death of captive

SAN DIEGO — A military jury acquitted a decorated Navy SEAL of premeditated murder Tuesday in the killing of a wounded Islamic State captive under his care in Iraq in 2017.

Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher was cleared of all charges except for posing for photos with the dead body of the captive in a verdict that is a major blow to military prosecutors. It took the jury less than two days to reach its verdict.

Gallagher reacted with “tears of joy, emotion, freedom and absolute euphoria,” defense lawyer Marc Mukasey said.

“Suffice it to say this is a huge victory,” Mukasey said outside court. “It’s a huge weight off the Gallaghers.”

The prosecution said Gallagher’s own text messages and photos incriminated him. They included photos of Gallagher holding the dead militant up by the hair and clutching a knife in his other hand.

A text message Gallagher sent while deployed said “got him with my hunting knife.”

The prosecution also pointed to testimony of Gallagher’s fellow troops, while defense lawyers called the case a “mutiny” by entitled, junior SEALS trying to oust a demanding chief and repeatedly told the jury that there was no body, no forensic evidence and no blood found on the knife.

Both sides told jurors that witnesses had lied on the stand and that it was Gallagher their duty to push through the evidence to find the truth. Gallagher, 40, did not testify.

The panel of five Marines and two sailors, including a SEAL, had to weigh whether Gallagher, a 19-year veteran on his eighth deployment, fatally stabbed the war prisoner on May 3, 2017, as a kind of trophy kill, or was the victim of allegations fabricated after the platoon returned to San Diego to stop him from getting a Silver Star and being promoted.

Under the military system, two-thirds of a jury needs to agree to convict. In Gallagher’s case, that meant five of seven jurors. Vote tallies are not made public in military cases.

Gallagher was also charged with attempted murder in the shootings of two Iraqi civilians, and four other charges: unlawful discharge of his firearm by shooting at noncombatants, wrongfully posing with a human casualty, impeding an investigation by discouraging platoon members from reporting his criminal actions and retaliating against those who did.