{"id":44872,"date":"2019-04-29T22:42:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T22:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/04\/29\/what-happens-to-seals-who-testify-about-war-crimes\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:53:34","slug":"what-happens-to-seals-who-testify-about-war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/04\/29\/what-happens-to-seals-who-testify-about-war-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens to SEALs who testify about war crimes?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At least seven SEALs are slated to testify in the May 28 war crimes trial against Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher<\/a>, but attorneys continue to question what will happen to their careers once in the public spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one of the issues expected to be raised during a Tuesday hearing in a Naval Base San Diego courtroom, according to documents provided to Navy Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to give a speech about this,\u201d said Timothy Parlatore, Gallagher\u2019s civilian defense attorney. \u201cThe issues go beyond this trial, and they\u2019re important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all stems from a larger debate over the immunity deals offered to past and present members of SEAL Team 7<\/a> in exchange for their testimony against Gallagher, 39, who\u2019s accused of stabbing to death a wounded Islamic State prisoner of war, shooting two Iraqi civilians and then attempting to cover up the alleged 2017 incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher in Iraq in 2017. (courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Brian Ferguson, a Texas attorney who represents at least a dozen SEALs and other military members attached to Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 in Iraq in 2017, has three clients particularly tantalizing to either prosecutors or defense attorneys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the SEALs have threatened to assert their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination<\/a> if forced to take the stand against either Gallagher or his commanding officer, Lt. Jacob X. \u201cJake\u201d Portier, who\u2019s accused of helping his chief cover up the alleged war crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of them, a first class petty officer, is prized by prosecutors because he was helping Gallagher treat the wounded ISIS fighter before he died, and, in an initial interview taped by Naval Criminal Investigative Service, indicated that the platoon chief knifed the detainee in the neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But another Ferguson client indicated that he saw Gallagher hack into the boy\u2019s torso and later insisted that the prisoner had died before the cut, which means the chief knifed a corpse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A third client was a sniper who disputes how one of the alleged eyewitnesses to the shooting of a young girl came to believe Gallagher was the sharpshooter who gunned her down. He\u2019s cast doubt on how others recalled the death of an Iraqi man on Father\u2019s Day in 2017, according to internal NCIS files provided to Navy Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\t