US Army/Reuters
US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held for nearly five years by Afghan militants, was handed over to US Special Operations forces in Afghanistan on May 31, 2014 in a swap for five Taliban detainees.
An anonymous US official told the AP that the Army sergeant, who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban until a prisoner swap on May 31st, 2014, will be court martialed on charges of desertion and avoiding military service, as well as with misbehavior before the enemy.
An official announcement is expected later on March 25th.
Bergdahl walked away from his post in Afghanistan and was captured, then released from Taliban captivity this past May. In exchange, the US returned 5 Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, who were considered to be some of the last high-value Taliban prisoners still in US custody.
Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges.
A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit - a key element in the more serious desertion charges.
The case presents a number of challenges to military prosecutors. They will have to determine Bergdahl's intentions and state of mind in the middle of a war zone, something that legal experts believed would be difficult to establish up to the military's legal standards. But members of Bergdahl's unit have consistently stated that they believe Bergdahl deserted, so it's possible that investigators were faced with evidence that was too overwhelming for them to ignore.