A military judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial in the court martial of the Army officer who called the war in Iraq illegal and refused to join his unit when it deployed there last June.
The mistrial means that the officer, 1st Lieutenant Ehren Watada, could be retried next month, a spokesman for the base said.
Lieutenant Colonel John Head, the military judge presiding over the case, declared the mistrial after he rejected an agreement Watada had reached with prosecutors before the trial began on Monday.
Under the pretrial deal, known as a stipulation agreement, Watada, 28, who is assigned to a Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis, about 70km south of Seattle, acknowledged refusing to deploy and speaking out against the war. In turn, prosecutors dropped two charges related to comments Watada made in interviews.
Eric Seitz, Watada's lead civilian attorney, has maintained that there is no dispute over what Watada did, only over why he did it. He has said Watada's actions amounted to free speech and civil disobedience protected by the Constitution.
Head has repeatedly refused to allow Watada to center his defense on the argument that the war is illegal.
On Wednesday, after Seitz proposed that the judge require jurors to consider that Watada acted out of a mistaken belief that his actions were legal, Head declared the mistrial, citing confusion over the stipulation.
The judge, according to a statement released by Fort Lewis, became "concerned that the stipulation amounted to a confession by Lieutenant Watada to an offense to which he intended to plead not guilty."
Seitz said his team hoped the ruling would mark the end of proceedings.
"The mistrial is very likely to have the consequence of ending this case because double jeopardy may prevent the government from proceeding with a retrial," he said.
"I do not believe [the case] will ever be resurrected or can be resur-rected. Our hope is the army will realize this case is a hopeless mess," he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in