SAN DIEGO _ Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher was acquitted Tuesday on all murder charges, witness intimidation charge and assault charges related to a deployment in Iraq.
A seven-member jury panel convicted Gallagher on only one count, related to Gallagher taking pictures alongside an Iraqi fighter's corpse, which is the kind of charge that carries a maximum punishment of four months, court observers said.
Gallagher, 40, was charged with premeditated murder in connection with the death of a captive teenage Islamic State fighter injured in an airstrike. Although three of Gallagher's subordinate SEALs told investigators they witnessed the stabbing, just two of them testified during the trial. One of them _ Petty Officer 1st Class Corey Scott _ testified that he, not Gallagher, killed the fighter.
Scott said that after extensive medical treatments, Gallagher stabbed the fighter between his neck and collar bone. Afterward, Scott said, he covered the fighter's breathing tube until he suffocated and died.
The second witness, Chief Craig Miller, said he walked up to the scene and was about 12 feet away when he saw Gallagher stab the prisoner. Miller was a petty officer 1st class in 2017 and has since been promoted.
Gallagher's other charges stemmed from allegations from platoon snipers that he routinely took shots at civilian noncombatants from one of two bombed-out sniper towers they would work from day after day during deployment. The towers were just east of the Tigris River and gave the SEALs a position from which to engage Islamic State fighters across the river in "old" Mosul.
Three SEALs said they saw Gallagher shoot two civilians _ and old man and a young girl _ and a fourth, who was with Gallagher in his tower, said the chief told him he had shot a girl.
Prosecutors in their closing arguments reminded jurors of text messages they say Gallagher sent that appeared to brag about stabbing the injured Iraqi fighter, who had been brought to the SEALs for medical treatment. Gallagher in the texts appeared in photos with the corpse.
Gallagher's defense attorneys pointed to a chat group involving some of Gallagher's platoon mates discussing the allegations against him, saying this was evidence the group of SEALs had conspired against him. They also noted that the body of the injured fighter couldn't be obtained for an autopsy to determine the fighter's cause of death.
