Trump Pardons Former Soldier Who Was Convicted of Murdering Iraqi Prisoner

President Donald Trump has pardoned Michael Behenna, a former Army lieutenant who served five years in prison for the murder of an Iraqi prisoner in 2008.

Behenna, who was an Army Ranger in the 101st Airborne Division, was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone and sentenced to 25 years after killing Ali Mansur, a detainee and suspected al-Qaida member. Behenna has claimed repeatedly that he was acting in self-defense.

In a Monday evening statement, the White House announced Mr. Trump’s decision to sign an executive grant of clemency, which amounts to a full pardon, citing support from the military community and Oklahoma elected officials, some of whom had recently renewed a public campaign for the president’s order. Behenna, the statement said, was “entirely deserving.”

The former soldier, now 35, fought to overturn his conviction on the grounds that the prosecution had hid evidence that would have benefited his case. The judge denied the effort, but Behenna’s sentence was ultimately reduced to 15 years, and he was released on parole in 2014. Before Mr. Trump’s pardon, Behenna faced another five years of parole.

U.S. forces took Mansur into custody shortly after a roadside bomb struck a convoy traveling north of Baghdad, killing two of Behenna’s friends and platoon members. An intelligence report linked Mansur to the attack, but he was later freed when the military couldn’t find conclusive evidence of his involvement, according to Behenna’s pardon application.

Behenna was then ordered to transport Mansur back to his village. Instead, Behenna took him to a secluded railroad culvert and demanded more information from him.

At his 2009 court-martial, Behenna said Mansur had lunged for his weapon during the interrogation.

“I was scared Ali Mansur was going to take my weapon and use it against me,” he said then. “This happened very fast.”

Since his conviction, Behenna, an Oklahoma native, has won the support of former Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican; state Attorney General Mike Hunter, a Republican;, and more than 30 retired generals and admirals — among them President Trump’s former special envoy for the Persian Gulf, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Late Monday, Oklahoma’s U.S. senators, Republicans James Lankford and Jim Inhofe, praised the president’s decision.

“I’m grateful that the long road for Michael Behenna and his family has finally come to a joyous end,” Lankford said in the joint statement. “Michael now gets a clean slate and a second chance at life.”

In a 2018 letter to Trump, when Hunter first asked the president to pardon Behenna, Hunter conceded that some of Behenna’s actions were “undoubtedly wrong and condemnable.”

“But that does not mean he deserves the label ‘murderer,’” Hunter wrote, “or the lifelong punishment and stigma that come with being a federal criminal.”

On Monday, Hunter applauded President Trump and said Behenna has “admitted to his mistakes, has learned from them and deserves to move on.”

Behenna recently told The Washington Post that he was hopeful but cautious about his chances of being pardoned.

“We know we have a president who is very sympathetic to the very difficult situation that soldiers, sailors and Marines were put in during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,” said John Richter, who represented Behenna.

The pardon is the eighth Mr. Trump has issued and the first since July, when he granted clemency to the father-and-son cattle ranchers whose case helped spark the 2016 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.