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To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (220259)	9/19/2007 4:55:21 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 794046

Fayetteville Observer Published on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Navy lawyer balks at testifying By Henry Cuningham Military editor A Navy lawyer on Tuesday refused to testify about his role in bringing charges of premeditated murder against two Fort Bragg Special Forces soldiers for their actions in Afghanistan. Capt. Dave Staffel and Master Sgt. Troy Anderson are accused of premeditated murder in the shooting of Nawab Buntangyar on Oct. 13, 2006, at the village of Ster Kalay near the Pakistan border. They were on a mission as part of Operational Detachment Alpha 374 of the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group. In a telephone interview, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Douglas R. Velvel balked at answering questions during the Article 32 hearing at Fort Bragg. Earlier, lawyers interviewed Sgt. 1st Class Scott R. Haarer, a paralegal who signed the charge sheet. Haarer said he had knowledge of the incident only from reading a report and Velvel, his boss, asked him to sign it June 12 as a part of his job. Haarer said that at the time, he had not seen another report that indicated the shooting was justified. Col. Duke Christie, the investigating officer, promised to go to Velvel’s military superiors to compel him to testify. “You are a fairly critical witness in this regard,” said Christie, who is deputy commander of 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Ky. “I don’t know of any privilege he has in this regard,” said Hugh H. Overholt, a civilian defense lawyer for Staffel. Overholt, a retired Army major general, is from New Bern. Mark L. Waple, who also is a lawyer for Staffel, said he has an e-mail from Lt. Gen. Francis H. Kearney III indicating that the general directed that charges be initiated because Fort Bragg would not do it. Kearney was commander of special operations for Central Command. He is deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. People without government security clearances were frequently asked to leave the room during testimony that deal with tactics, methods of gathering information and “rules of engagement” that govern when soldiers can use force. During the hearing, Special Forces soldiers testified that the person who was killed had been identified as a “bad guy” and “a target we tried to find.” Lt. Col. Jim Friend, a former staff judge advocate for U.S. Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg, said he did not consider Nawab to be a civilian under the Geneva Conventions. “He was a combatant,” Friend said. Waple said after the hearing that the guidance can constitute unlawful command influence. “From testimony we received today, it illustrates the process was fundamentally flawed,” Overholt said after the hearing. Military editor Henry Cuningham can be reached at cuninghamh@fayobserver.com or 486-3585.

To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (220259)	9/19/2007 4:56:29 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794046

New York Times Green Beret Hearing Focuses on How Charges Came About By PAUL von ZIELBAUER Published: September 19, 2007 FORT BRAGG, N.C., Sept. 18 — An enlisted man who accused two Special Forces soldiers of illegally killing an Afghan man last year testified in a court Tuesday that he would not have agreed to make the accusation if he had known that a military investigation already concluded the killing was justified. Sgt. First Class Scott R. Haarer, a paralegal for the lawyer responsible for initiating the murder charges, said that if he had known about the investigation’s findings, “I would have requested that I not sign the document” that officially accused the two soldiers in June of premeditated murder. The admission was one of a few unusual moments in a hearing that cracks open a window onto some of the most secret Special Operations tactics in Afghanistan, including the hunting and killing of people designated as enemy combatants. The hearing is meant to determine whether there is enough evidence to convene a court-martial for Capt. Dave Staffel and Master Sgt. Troy Anderson, the two Green Berets accused of killing a man the Army considered an “enemy combatant.” On Captain Staffel’s order, Sergeant Anderson killed the man, Nawab Buntangyar, on Oct. 13 after a team of Special Forces soldiers discovered him walking outside his residential compound near the village of Ster Kalay, a few miles from the border with Pakistan. Special Operations commanders in Afghanistan had placed Mr. Buntangyar on a “Top 10” list of individuals to be captured or killed, according to other testimony heard Tuesday, because he had organized a local cell of suicide attackers and helped build bombs. Sergeant Haarer, testifying via telephone, said he thought it was “a little odd” that his boss, Lt. Cmdr. Douglas R. Velvel, the legal adviser to the Special Operations commanding general in Afghanistan who was advocating filing the murder charges, asked him to sign legal documents as the official accuser. The request came after Commander Velvel told Sergeant Haarer to read through a “narrative of facts” about the killing written by Commander Velvel. It is unusual for an enlisted soldier to formally accuse other soldiers of crimes, particularly soldiers of higher rank. It is rarer still for a military lawyer in a criminal inquiry to request or order a subordinate with no firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing to allege a crime formally. Army legal procedures require military lawyers like Commander Velvel to find someone else, usually an officer, to sign the charging document as an accuser. Commander Velvel was also sworn in by telephone as a witness Tuesday morning, but refused to answer questions, citing his privilege as staff lawyer to Lt. Gen. Frank H. Kearney, commander of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan at the time, to keep his legal advice secret. In his public testimony, Lt. Col. James Friend, a Special Forces lawyer, said he advised Army investigators to conclude that the killing was justified even though Mr. Buntangyar was not in custody, actively surrendering or obviously wounded — all conditions that under the Geneva Conventions would prevent the killing of an enemy fighter. “Soldiers can kill any person who has been considered to be an enemy combatant,” Colonel Friend told the hearing. Though the Special Forces team could have easily captured Mr. Buntangyar instead of killing him, Colonel Friend added, they were not legally required to do so. General Kearney was also on the hearing’s witness list. But early Tuesday morning, he sent Captain Staffel’s civilian defense lawyer, Mark Waple, an e-mail message acknowledging he had ordered the murder charges to go forward “because no one at Fort Bragg would,” Mr. Waple said. As a result of that statement, neither side called the general as a witness.