A US war hero has been exonerated after he threw a child abuser off a US military base in Afghanistan.
Sgt First Class Charles Martland faced a court martial and expulsion from the military for his treatment of the abuser, because he was a local police commander working alongside the Americans.
Martland, a Green Beret with an 11-year Special Forces career, was stationed in Afghanistan in 2011 when a boy’s mother came to him and said she’d been beaten and her son raped by a local police commander. Sergeant Martland said, “We felt a moral obligation to act.”
Martland and another soldier summoned the police oficial and, when the man laughed at them, saying, “He’s only a child”, they threw him off the base. But red tape meant that Martland and colleague Daniel Quinn were both disciplined for their actions.
But the US army backed down after receiving petitions signed by 342,000 people and 66,000 letters in support of Sgt Martland, who will be able to continue his military career.
An intensive six-month campaign was organised by the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ), who hailed a “significant” victory.