Army reopens investigation of Special Forces soldier accused of killing detainee after Fox News interview

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command has reopened its investigation of an Afghanistan war hero who Army officials said confessed to killing an unarmed Taliban detainee.

The service is again scrutinizing former Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn after he appeared in a Fox News television interview in October and acknowledged that he had killed a Taliban bombmaker who had been held as a detainee during the bloody battle of Marja in February 2010. The bombmaker was not on a list of targets that U.S. forces had been cleared to kill, according to Army documents, but Golsteyn said that letting go of the insurgent meant the Taliban member could later target Afghans who are helping U.S. troops.

“You realize quickly that you make things worse,” Golsteyn said in the interview. “It is an inevitable outcome that people who are cooperating with coalition forces, when identified, will suffer some terrible torture or be killed.”

Read More- Washington Post

Image courtesy of Fayetteville Observer