Bergdahl describes torture by Taliban

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl says he was tortured repeatedly in the five years he was held captive by the Taliban: beaten with a copper cable, chained, held in a cage and threatened with execution after trying to escape.

Bergdahl described his captivity in a note his lawyer made public Thursday after sharing it with the Army in an attempt to avert a court- martial.

The Army charged Bergdahl nevertheless Wednesday, accusing him of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for leaving his post in Afghanistan in June 2009.

Freed last year in exchange for five Taliban commanders held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the 28-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Bergdahl says he tried about a dozen times to escape, and that his captors’ response was brutal.

“In the beginning of my captivity, after my first two escape attempts, for about three months I was chained to a bed spread-eagle and blindfolded,” Bergdahl wrote.

“Around my ankles where the chains were, I developed open wounds. ... During these months some of the things they did was beat the bottoms of my feet and parts of my body with a copper cable.”

He also says he was beaten with a rubber hose, fists and the butt of an AK-47, so hard the rifle’s stock broke off. He was repeatedly threatened with execution, and “kept in constant isolation during the entire 5 years.”

Bergdahl next faces an Article 32 hearing before a high-ranking officer known as a “convening authority,” who will decide if the evidence merits a court-martial.

Bergdahl’s lawyer Eugene Fidell said the sergeant has already suffered more than enough.

“This is a hellish environment he was kept in for nearly five years, particularly after he did his duty in trying to escape,” Fidell, a former military lawyer now in private practice, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “There is no question in my mind that a convening authority would not be doing his or her duty without taking into account the circumstances under which Sgt. Berhdahl was held.”

Bergdahl’s two-page description of his captivity was attached to a letter Fidell sent March 2 to Gen. Mark Milley, who as commander of the U.S. Army Forces was responsible for deciding the criminal charges.