A Navy SEAL who was accused of stabbing and killing a wounded teenage ISIS fighter in the neck, shooting at numerous Iraqi civilians and threatening fellow SEALs to keep them from reporting him was acquitted today of murder and other charges. Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher was acquitted of six of the seven charges he was facing. Gallagher was convicted solely of posing with the teen's body in a photograph.

The verdict means Gallagher will walk away a free man. The charge for which he was convicted carries a maximum sentence of four months behind bars, which he has already served. Gallagher, 40, could have faced up to life in prison if convicted of murdering the teen in May 2017, as well as shooting a male and female civilian and shooting at an unknown number of other civilians later that year in Mosul, Iraq. The highly decorated veteran was acquitted of charges including murder, attempted murder, willful discharge of a firearm and obstruction of justice. The jury of five Marines and two Navy men began weighing Gallagher's fate Monday afternoon.

Prosecutor Jeff Pietrzyk said in his closing argument that despite a lack of physical evidence, text messages and pictures Gallagher took with the teen's body are direct evidence of his guilt. "Good story behind this one. Got him with my hunting knife," read one of the text messages Gallagher allegedly sent to a colleague. "I got a cool story for you when I get back. I got my knife skills on." Prosecutors alleged that once Gallagher received word of the prisoner, who was injured in an air strike, Gallagher said, "No one touch him. He's mine."

He was accused of pulling out a hunting knife and stabbing the boy multiple times while he was being tended to by other SEALs. Prosecutors accused Gallagher of shooting two civilians, whose bodies were never recovered, about a month later and opening fire on a crowd of other civilians from a sniper's nest. Gallagher's defense team claimed the allegations are fabrications coming from a group of disgruntled subordinates who felt their platoon commander was too tough on them.

His attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said the SEALs who reported Gallagher were lying, and he contended the government was relying entirely on their word in the face of a complete absence of physical evidence that any of the charged events ever occurred. "No body, no forensics, no science, no evidence, no case,'' Parlatore said. The attorney emphasized that in addition to no bodies being recovered, no blood was ever seen on Gallagher or the hunting knife, despite photographs taken shortly after the stabbing allegedly happened. Without a body, a forensic expert testifying as an expert witness was unable to determine the teen's cause of death based solely on video footage of the boy's injuries.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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