Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that:
Military officials have charged Staff Sgt. Rashad Valmont with murder in the fatal shooting of Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado at Fort Gillem, U.S. Army spokeswoman Maj. Lenora Hutchinson told the AJC on Tuesday.
The report then goes on to say that:
I. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE ERRED IN CONCLUDING THAT NO SOLDIER AT FORWARD OPERATING BASE (FOB) LOYALTY HAD A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY IN ANY REGARD.
II. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE ERRED IN DENYING A MOTION TO SUPPRESS APPELLANT’S EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE AND PASSWORD PROTECTED LAPTOP WHEN THE
COMMANDER WHO ORDERED THE SEIZURE OF THE EQUIPMENT IMMEDIATELY SEARCHED THE EQUIPMENT UPON SEIZURE, DEMONSTRATING THAT HE WAS PERFORMING LAW ENFORCEMENT FUNCTIONS AND WAS NOT NEUTRAL AND
DETACHED WHEN SEIZING THE ITEMS.
Thanks to a nicely and newly redesigned JAA website, here is information this years Appellate Advocacy Symposium. This is good training and good for those all important CLE credits for civilian attorneys. (Note, VA gives full credit for this one day seminar. I just checked my CLE records and we were only given four hours for two days of the CAAF Judicial Conference this year. I believe this relates to written materials not being provided as part of the instruction. VA requires that there be some form of written handout or materials given out along with instructor bio’s, etc.)
APPELLATE ADVOCACY SYMPOSIUM
October 15th, 2010 8:00am-5:00pm
George Mason University School of Law
This event is co-sponsored by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the Judge Advocates Association. For information about this event, please contact CPT Joshua Johnson at: joshua.johnson34@us.army.mil.
Army Times reports that:
The military has released the name of the man allegedly shot to death by a fellow reservist at Fort Gillem.
An earlier release said that the name of the suspect would not be released until there were charges.
Texas senator is demanding answers from the Air Force on the current status of the 10 AWOL Afghan military deserters, which he called a breach of national security.
The initial number of Afghans being floated was 17. Now:
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that:
The victim of Thursday’s U.S. Army Reserve post shooting and his alleged killer both apparently worked together, Army officials said Friday. Both men were full-time Army Guard reserve soldiers assigned to the Army Medical Professional Management Command, spokeswoman Maj. Lenora Hutchinson told the AJC.
It’s unclear whether they both were on-duty and working in the office building near the southeast corner of Fort Gillem when the shooting took place, but the alleged shooter was said to be in military uniform when he later turned himself in to police in Lake City, just south of the base.
Military.com has this piece of information which is a little different but nuanced than other reports.
Emery said it is rare for DLI students to go AWOL but it happens. An Iraqi soldier disappeared in 2009 but turned up in Houston where he asked for asylum rather than return to Iraq. A soldier from Djibouti also went missing in 2009. This year one soldier each from Tunisia and Guinea Bissau have gone AWOL.
An Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking classified information to Wikileaks has still not been charged with any crime, three weeks after being arrested and put in pre-trial confinement.
This is not an unusual time. Under Article 10, UCMJ, the government has a 120 window. However, that does not mean that the charges can or will be dismissed if the government takes longer than the 120 days.
However, in the meantime here is some of the back-story which may have some relevance to SPC Manning currently in pretrial confinement at Camp Arifjan.
I posted yesterday about the Afghan military personnel AWOL in CONUS.
Before it’s News now is tying this incident with this:
In late January, Senators were warned that Al Qaeda is determined to stage an attack on U.S. soil by July 2010. This information circled the media for some time, as they continually pumped images of Al Qaeda onto newscasts around the world. If this “threat” holds true than we only have 13 days left until a major attack.
A nationwide alert has been issued for 17 members of the Afghan military who have gone AWOL from a Texas Air Force base where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, FoxNews.com has learned. . . .
A senior Defense Department official in Washington told Fox News he had no direct knowledge of the 17 men being AWOL. The official added that this is not the first time foreign trainees have gone missing, and said some cases in the past have turned out to be more of an immigration concern than a national security threat.
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