FNC Reports Plight of Navy SEAL Heroes Charged with Prisoner Abuse

FNC Reports Plight of Navy SEAL Heroes Charged with Prisoner Abuse

In the past several days, FNC has given attention to the plight of three Navy SEALs who helped capture one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq – a man named Ahmed Hashim Abed who is believed to have planned the savage murder of four Blackwater security guards in Fallujah in 2004. Due to accusations of prisoner abuse by Abed, these American troops are now facing the possibility of court-martial. On Wednesday’s Special Report with Bret Baier, correspondent Steve Centanni began his report:

It was March of 2004. Fallujah was a hotbed of insurgent activity. Four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed. Their bodies were mutilated and burned, then dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. The man believed to have planned that attack, Ahmed Hashim Abed ... had long evaded capture. But when a team of Navy SEALs finally did catch up with him in September of this year, they weren't hailed as heroes. Instead, three of them were brought up on charges.

Fox and Friends also raised the story Wednesday morning, and Thursday’s show delved further into the matter as former JAG officer and defense attorney Tom Kenniff appeared as a guest and argued that the accusations of abuse are consistent with al-Qaeda’s practice of advising its members to level false accusations of abuse against American troops if captured. Kenniff:

This is right out of the, you know, al-Qaeda employee handbook. I mean, they tell their guys, look, the first thing to do in a post-Abu Ghraib era if you're detained by American forces is to allege detainee abuse. So this is nothing new. We've seen repeated cases of this since the whole conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have began.

Kenniff also relayed to viewers that the troops are determined to prove their innocence in court which could give them jail time rather than plead guilty for a light punishment. Kenniff:

In this particular case, these individuals have said, you know, thanks, but no thanks, we’re maintaining our innocence. If you want to try and bring a case against us, you’ll do it via courts-martial.

Below are transcripts of relevant portions of FNC coverage of the story from the Wednesday, November 25, Special Report with Brit Hume, and the Thursday, November 26, Fox and Friends :