Navy Undaunted After SEAL Witness Admits Killing
Speaker 1: 00:00 No witness testimony so far in the gallery go court Marshall today, but the defense prosecution and the public are still trying to digest yesterday. Shocking claim from the witness stand now that a navy seal medic has told the court he and not Edward Gallagher ended the life of an isis prisoner in Iraq. What effect will that claim have on the outcome of the trial? Joining me as KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh from the trial venue at the 32nd street naval base and Steve, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:31 Hi Maureen, who is a little quieter this morning. Certainly much quieter than yesterday. Speaker 1: 00:36 What is going on in the hearing today? Speaker 2: 00:39 This morning there's prosecutors and the defense are arguing over whether or not to admit some DNA data. So far the judge hasn't made a decision. It's rather technical. But coming up this afternoon, we're going to see a two more seals. They're expected to testify. They're kind of really two basic sets of allegations against Eddie Gallagher. One of them that he stabbed and killed. They wounded teenage isis fighter in his custody. The other ones involved him, uh, shooting at a elderly man. And a young woman while as with his sniper rifle in this afternoon's testimony, they'll zero in more on those allegations of shooting the man and the woman Speaker 1: 01:19 have navy prosecutors responded to yesterday's blockbuster testimony. Is the trial therefore moving forward as if nothing happened? Speaker 2: 01:28 Well it's moving forward but you know, prosecutors say very little in this trial situation of the defense will come out almost on a daily basis and we'll give you their thoughts on the day's events. Prosecutors do none of that so we don't get as much of a window into what they're thinking is that we have had a statement issued by the navy saying that they are going to let the jury decide who's telling the truth in this case. So yes, this case is certainly moving forward. Speaker 1: 01:55 The medics Cory Scott who told the court that he actually caused the death of the Isis prisoner by closing his breathing tube. Is he expected to face any charges for that admission? Speaker 2: 02:06 We cannot say for sure at the moment. He is not. He has a prosecutorial immunity, so anything he says is it was not supposed to be used against him. File any charges, uh, he can still be, I'm charged with perjury for lying on the stand. I will say in the buildup to this trial, there was a great deal of wrangling and we didn't quite understand it at the time. Many of these seals have their own outside attorneys separate from the defense or prosecutors for that matter. And there was a lot of wrangling over like whether or not they would receive immunity from just military court or whether or not they would also receive immunity from federal courts. And ultimately the seven seals that are scheduled to testify now have, have both. The US Attorney's office has also had also signed off under this community before Cory's got took the stand. Speaker 1: 02:56 No, even though Scott testified he caused actual death, he's still told the court he saw Gallagher's stabbed their prisoner in an unprovoked attack. Is that in line with other witness testimony? Speaker 2: 03:08 Indeed. So now we have two separate seals that have taken to the Stan, Corey Scott and uh, the chief petty officer Miller, who both say that they saw Gallagher's stamp him. And in the case of Scott's, he became a much less responsive to prosecutors yesterday then he had been an earlier statements to them into Ncif. Originally we were told that, uh, Scott had said that the Gallagher stab team two or three times on the witness stand, he said you owe me, snapped him one time and that he felt that uh, injury wasn't life threatening. Uh, Miller said when he saw him stab at that you saw a great deal a of blood and that, um, it, it definitely was life threatening. Speaker 1: 03:51 No. Aside from the witness testimony, has there been any other kind of evidence introduced in the trial photos or anything like that? Speaker 2: 04:00 Oh yeah. We've seen a great that we've seen the videos much like police. The baby seals will carry helmet cam. So we have seen the pictures of the detainee while he was still alive. He was brought in by Iraqis and uh, on a, on top of a Humvee. He was still alive and responsive. We see Gallagher's starting to work on him, provides medical assistance with an another medic and he's still alive at that point. He actually flinches forward when, uh, when Gallagher grabbed his leg and then Gallagher pushes him back down to the ground. And of course we've seen, uh, photos of several of these seals posing with, um, with the dead Iraqi fighter. And also there was an allegation initially of them flying a drone over the dead body. We actually have seen that footage is if a small white drone and the bodies in the background, what we learned in court is that bodies stayed at that site cupboard, but stated that site for a possibly several days before the CEO finally cleared the area. Speaker 1: 05:00 Now, Gallagher's defense claimed vindication after yesterday's testimony from the medic. What did they have to say about that? Speaker 2: 05:07 They're incredibly excited. How, as we mentioned yesterday, the family seemed to jubilant, and that's not to say that this is just evidence of a very sloppy investigation that there on the stand, Scott has a hour in his testimony prior to being on the stand, Scott had said that, uh, the detainee had been [inaudible] 68. It's not step six, eat it. That's what we, somehow it caused his death and their thing that no one with the prosecutors are in cis followed up on [inaudible]. So when they raised it on the stand and they said, uh, after court yesterday that they did not know Scott was going to say that he been the one to kill them, that's what they say. But issue of the fixation was a key part that was completely overlooked by prosecutors though prosecutors say on the other side, in this case, they quizzed him and at each step of the way, see what happened next. What happened next? Did you do this? Did you do that? That they believe that they're a investigation was incredibly detailed and that this was just a bombshell revelation by Scott. Speaker 1: 06:11 Now she's Gallagher is also charged with other offenses including shooting two civilians. One have the seals testifying at the trial said are regarding those accusations. Speaker 2: 06:24 Right? So we will hear more about that today. So, uh, essentially the, the, the key witnesses and maths. But we've already seen a couple of different feel, a a former sniper, a Dylan delay, and then a chief Miller have both gotten on the stand and talked about seeing Gallagher firing from his position I and hitting on a rocky man firing it, civilians firing at a crowd of civilians. Now, on the other hand, so far, the defense will get up and say that no one saw Gallagher specifically pulled the trigger. They saw shots coming from, they've heard taking testimony of Gallagher bragging about shooting or killing or not having a problem with killing someone. But I'm no direct admissions that I shot this man and killed this woman. So, um, we're waiting now for more testimony to come this afternoon. These are of course, all of these seven seals who had been granted immunity to testify in this case. Uh, and this is going to be the meat of the prosecutor's case on the sniper allegations. Speaker 1: 07:28 I've been speaking with KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh. Steve, thank you. Thanks marine.
