The desertion lawsuit against US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been temporarily placed on hold. The order to halt such proceeding was issued by the US Army Court of Criminal appeals on Tuesday due to classified information dispute.
After the prosecutors submitted a request to the US Army Court of Criminal appeal to overturn a decision by the trial judge, the court then delayed the case. Radio Free Europe reported that Colonel Jeffrey Nance, ordered the prosecutors to turn over 300,000 pages of classified documents, which are subject to certain rules. Col. Jeffrey Nance, the judge assigned in Bergdahl's military trial wrote on February 2, that "all CI (classified information) which the government may offer into evidence at trial will immediately be provided to the defense within the specified constraints."
Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl's defense attorney, argued that the prosecutors want them to undergo a burdensome process of seeking classified data while it prepares for the trial. The defense also said that the request of the prosecutors was granted without giving them a chance to respond, as reported by Local News 8. Judge Nance disagreed with the arguments presented by the prosecutors that Bergdahl's lawyers needed an extra layer of approval when they already conducted their own research from the officials who initially restricted a given document.
ABC News reported that Bergdahl was held by the Taliban and its allies for five years after he walked off an outpost in Afghanistan back in 2009. He was then released in May 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange. The prisoner swap was supported by Obama and has drawn many harsh criticisms and some in Congress accused the US president of jeopardizing the safety of the nation.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Such charges are uncommon which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The case of Bergdahl had been debated for months in pretrial motions, but the schedule of the trial is still unclear for both parties.
