After an hour of testimony and cross-examination inside the Naval Station San Diego courtroom on Thursday morning, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Corey Scott walked through a small hallway where his attorney, Brian Ferguson, waited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tough SEAL briefly broke down. Then he bear-hugged his lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moments later they were talking by phone to the editor of Navy Times, who knew before Scott took the stand that a legal bombshell was about to detonate all over the court-martial case against Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher, the enlisted boss of Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 during a deployment to Iraq two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scott sounded relieved, Ferguson exhausted, and both didn\u2019t want to talk on the record about what had just been unleashed, but it\u2019s something Scott had kept inside him since May 3, 2017: Eddie Gallagher didn\u2019t murder the seriously wounded teenage Islamic State prisoner of war hauled into the SEAL compound near Mosul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scott did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told the panel of Marines and sailors deciding Gallagher\u2019s fate that the chief didn\u2019t kill the boy. He did. He plugged the detainee\u2019s breathing tube with his thumb so that he wouldn\u2019t fall into the hands of the Iraqi security forces lingering nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI knew he was going to die anyway, and I wanted to save him from waking up to whatever would happen to him,\u201d Scott said in his sworn testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\t