BobMcCarty.com
July 6, 2012
Short of a presidential pardon, which isn’t likely in this day and age, it appears Army Ranger 1LT Michael C. Behenna will remain behind bars at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., until he turns 40 years old. The Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C., has upheld the 29-year-old Edmond, Okla., native’s conviction stemming from a May 16, 2008, shooting in Iraq.
Clockwise from upper left: Michael’s family; Michael; Michael as a youngster; and Michael and his girlfriend, Shannon.
The sad news arrived shortly after 6 p.m. Central Thursday, almost 11 weeks after the five-member CAAF panel heard Lieutenant Behenna’s final appeal of the verdict that found him guilty of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq.
It is beyond comprehension how multiple levels of the military justice system were able to reconcile the lieutenant’s conviction with the fact that the government’s own expert witness reached the conclusion that the lieutenant acted in self defense — see this post and this post for more details — but they did. And by a 3-2 margin.
One Comment
Orders in the military are not suggestions. You follow them. Civilians have a hard time understanding this concept. LT Behenna knows what he did was against orders and that he put himself in the position he currently sits.
The big question that the judges can not get past is, if it were self defense, why did he not inform his chain of command? There is not a commander on the battlefield that would prosecute one of his own soldiers for defending himself or his men.