Army prosecutors just sent Bowe Bergdahl's case to a general court-martial

The attorney for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in exchange for five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in May of 2013, says the soldier's case has been referred for trial by a general court-martial, according to the Associated Press.

Attorney Eugene Fidell says the convening authority did not follow the advice of the preliminary hearing officer who had recommended that Bergdahl's case be moved only to a special misdemeanor-level military court

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was held by the Taliban for nearly five years after he walked off his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. In March, Bergdahl was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

For a time, it looked as if Bergdahl's case was just too ambiguous for the military to successfully prosecute before a general courts martial. In October, Bergdahl's legal team said that the military officer in charge of a preliminary hearing in the case recommended his case be concluded without jail time or a punitive discharge from the military.

The case would also be inherently difficult to prosecute, partly because of the still murky nature of Bergdahl's intentions and state of mind in leaving in his base in Afghanistan, and because of the years between the alleged crimes and an actual court martial. "It would be challenging because of the time that's elapsed to piece together all the circumstances of him leaving the unit," Victor Hansen, a former JAG officer and professor at the New England School of Law, told Business Insider in June of 2014.

Bergdahl could now be facing steep legal consequences. Bergdahl was charged with desertion, a difficult-to-prove accusation that requires military prosecutors to prove that he left his base without intending to return. But he's also accused of "misbehavior before the enemy," a rarely-invoked charge in which prosecutors only have to prove that Bergdahl "endanger[ed] fellow soldiers when he 'left without authority; and wrongfully caused search and recovery operations,'" according to Military Times. Bergdahl could face life in prison if convicted.

Bergdahl's case has drawn renewed attention as the topic of season 2 of the popular podcast "Serial," which premiered on December 10th and includes Begdahl's only post-captivity media interview. In the premiere episode, Bergdahl claimed that he intended to trigger a wide-scale manhunt in leaving his base, but then changed his mind and decided to walk to a forward operating base some 20 miles away from his outpost.