US President Donald Trump granted clemency to two US Army officers convicted of, or charged with, war crimes in Afghanistan.
A full pardon was granted to Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who had ordered soldiers under his command to open fire on three men who were moving toward them on a motorcycle “with unusual speed,” according to a White House statement mentioned in a report by Bloomberg news. Lorance was originally convicted of killing two men in that incident.
Trump also pardoned Major Matthew Golsteyn, a Green Beret who was charged with an unlawful killing in Afghanistan and was facing a court martial, the White House statement said.
According to the statement, Golsteyn had shot a man suspected of making a bomb that had killed two Marines “because he was certain that the terrorist’s bombmaking activities would continue to threaten American troops and their Afghan partners, including Afghan civilians who had helped identify him.”
