Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

What knucklehead came up with this plan to admonish troops after they captured a known terrorist that was probably on a "most wanted list". We usually punish errant soldiers when they do something heinous and inhumane--not for something as miniscule as a bloody lip. By doing this type of idiotic prosecution, our troops will not know for whom they fight. Certainly, not their leaders up the food chain.... lakotahope

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Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred

and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

"I gave the detainee a glance over and then left," the SEAL wrote. "I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health."

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

"I gave the detainee a glance over and then left," the SEAL wrote. "I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health."

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment

Something mighty peculiar going on with this report. Department of Justice seems to be seeking to expand on their role in controlling information from U.S. companies and it's citizens. They must think they are operating in Communist China. Like the following article mentions--how many more of these subpoenas seeking private ip addresses of site followers are floating around with non disclosure stipends attached.... lakotahope

Web Site Says Justice Department Demanded It Secretly Turn Over Readers' Information

by Diane Macedo

FOXNews.com

Indymedia.us says the Department of Justice ordered it to release information on its readers -- then directed the news Web site to keep quiet about the demand.

An independent news Web site says the Department of Justice ordered it to release detailed information on its readers -- then directed the site to keep quiet about the demand.

Kristina Clair, systems administrator for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked when she received a subpoena from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis in January demanding the IP address of every person who visited the site on June 25, 2008. She said she was also instructed "not to disclose the existence of this request unless authorized by the Assistant U.S. Attorney."

Clair said she was astonished by the demand. "It's a purely aggregate site, it only pulls data from other Indymedia feeds," she told FoxNews.com. "There's no information fed to the site directly."

When she contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a legal advocacy group for digital freedom, she was told the subpoena was riddled with problems.

"Not only was this request a plain violation of federal privacy law -- which would require the government to at least get a court order based on a factual showing to get that kind of data; not only did it violate Department of Justice regulations that require subpoenas to media organizations to be vetted by the attorney general; not only did it threaten the First Amendment right to read anonymously of all of Indymedia's users, it also violated Ms. Clair's First Amendment rights by ordering her not to disclose the subpoena's existence," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston told FoxNews.com.

EFF said it sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Doris L. Pryor on Feb. 13 relaying its concerns with the subpoena and explaining that Indymedia didn't store IP addresses and didn't have the data the government was looking for.

"On February 24, I received a voicemail from Ms. Pryor in response to my letter," Bankston said. "In that message, Ms. Pryor said that I was correct that the subpoena did not compel Ms. Clair's silence, but that she would be seeking a court order, as she would confirm in a letter later that day."

Instead, Bankston said, he received a fax from Pryor the next day stating that the subpoena had been withdrawn.

When he called the U.S. Attorney's office later that day to discuss the newly dismissed subpoena, Bankston said Steven DeBrota, the assistant U.S. attorney working on the case, told him the office had reconsidered seeking a court order for Clair's silence but still insisted that disclosure of the subpoena would harm the investigation.

Still, Bankston said, DeBrota would not confirm that Clair would face no legal consequences if she disclosed the subpoena, so EFF sent another e-mail asking for confirmation that there was no legal bar to disclosing the subpoena. Three months later, there was still no response, he said.

"So we wrote them again saying, 'If you actually think this is going to hurt your investigation, go to court and we'll fight it out there, otherwise we're going assume it's not going to hurt your investigation and we're going to speak out about it,'" Bankston said.

With no response to the May letter, EFF and Clair said they decided to go public with the subpoena and EFF's report critiquing it out of fear that this may not be an isolated incident.

"We don't know how many people have received these subpoenas -- that would violate the privacy of anyone that ever read their Web site -- but didn't say anything about it and didn't contact a lawyer because there was a gag order attached to it," EFF spokeswoman Rebecca Jeschke told FoxNews.com.

When asked about the EFF report, U.S. Attorney Morrison told FoxNews.com "we can't comment about that."

Morrison then directed FoxNews.com to Justice Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz, who said, "The U.S. Attorney's Office of Indiana South issued the subpoena and it's a grand jury investigation. They're [Morrison's office] the one's giving comment. ... Unfortunately, we [the Justice Department] can't comment on grand jury deliberations."

A source with knowledge of the situation said the subpoena in question required the signature of the attorney general -- or, in his absence, of acting Attorney General Mark Filip -- but that Filip's office never saw it, and the subpoena was never kicked up for approval.

The source would not say whether an internal investigation into the matter, specifically Morrison's actions, had been opened.