Details Here
Relieved and vindicated SEAL here
This is the sort of person the 'plaintiff' is (from the Toledo Blade):
The cases against the three SEALs were based on statements from Ahmed Hashim Abed and PO 3rd Class Kevin Demartino, the Navy master-at-arms charged with guarding him after his capture.
Abed didn't appear in person, but his testimony was recorded and played back for the seven-member jury. He was far from a sympathetic character. In addition to his alleged involvement in the murder of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in 2004, Abed was known to Iraqis as "The Finisher," Mr. McCabe's lawyers said. Abed was reputed to have the decapitated bodies of his victims delivered to their families' doorsteps.
And as for the witness for plaintiff:
On Wednesday, the government's key witness, Petty Officer Kevin Demartino, testified that he saw McCabe hit Abed in the abdomen.
Demartino, who is not a SEAL, testified that he did not initially report the September assault to his superiors because "this is these guys' lives. Some guys can see something and start singing like a bird. I couldn't do it," he said.
"I should've done it. By the book, it's a failure to report," he added.
Demartino testified that his conscience eventually got the better of him, so he finally reported his version of the events surrounding the detainee's beating.
"It was either being in the good graces of the SEALs or being in the good graces of God," Demartino said.
McCabe's defense attorneys called a series of witnesses who questioned Demartino's version of events and said he was distraught due to his deployment. Some directly contradicted Demartino, saying that statements he attributed to them during his testimony were false.
"He had issues," McCabe said of Demartino after his verdict was announced. "Everybody made that clear."
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