(Tribune News Service) — A former Fort Bragg Army officer will remain in prison on murder charges for the slayings of two Afghan nationals in the Afghanistan war, Maj. Gen. Richard D. Clarke of the 82nd Airborne Division has decided.
Clarke, the division's commander, was considering a clemency request from former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance. Lorance was court-martialed at Fort Bragg in summer 2013 for ordering his soldiers to shoot at three Afghans while on patrol in summer 2012. Two of the men were killed and the third ran away.
Clarke cut a year off Lorance's 20-year sentence but otherwise upheld his convictions and punishment, a Fort Bragg spokeswoman said this week.
"Maj. Gen. Richard Clarke carefully reviewed the facts of US v. Lorance, to include the clemency requests submitted in August, October, November and December 2014," said Maj. Crystal Boring of the 18th Airborne Corps. "After an in-depth study of the case, he upheld the guilty verdict from the court-martial panel and directed one year off the original sentence of 20 years confinement due to post-trial delay. The case is now being forwarded to the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals."
The one-year sentence reduction comes after Lorance's lawyer argued the Army was too slow to consider Lorance's clemency request. It's been 17 months since Lorance's conviction. Clarke got the case in October when he took command of the 82nd.
The prosecution and conviction of Lorance has been controversial. He contends he lawfully ordered the shooting to protect his troops from enemy forces who could have been scouting for an attack or approaching to set off a bomb.
Prosecutors said the three men on the motorcycle displayed no threat - such as possession of weapons, a cell phone or two-way radio - so Lorance wasn't allowed under the military's rules of engagement - rules on when to enter into combat - to order the attack.
They argued that Lorance recklessly endangered his soldiers and the American mission with this incident and several other orders to shoot at Afghan residents over the course of several days. These shootings risked turning the local population against U.S. forces, they said.
Lorance's lawyer, John N. Maher, has said he has obtained evidence that connects the men on the motorcycle to people who have committed bombings in Afghanistan, and this should show that their deaths were justified.
None of Maher's evidence directly implicates the two who were killed.
Maher's new evidence suggests the third man, said to be the brother and uncle of the two who were killed, was involved in a bombing two months after he was attacked by the Americans.
Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at woolvertonp@fayobserver.com or 486-3512.
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©2015 The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.)
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