Jurors at Fort Bragg, N.C., deliberated four hours before clearing Master Sgt. Joseph D. Newell, 39, of Tecumseh, Mich., who was charged with premeditated murder and mutilating a dead body. He could have been imprisoned for life.
Military jury has acquitted a veteran U.S. special forces soldier of killing an unarmed Afghan man and then cutting off one of his ears.The man he shot had been detained after a vehicle stop outside Hyderabad, Afghanistan, last March 5. Checking the man's cell phone, Newell, with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, found a picture of a Russian machine gun commonly used by Taliban forces.Newell testified he shot the man twice after he lunged at him, but the prosecution said eye-witness accounts proved the man did not constitute a threat and that he did not lunge at Newell.
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