The key military decision-maker in the rare court-martial of a United States Army general accused of sexual assault said on Monday that political pressure did not influence his actions in the case, but defense attorneys argued new evidence proved otherwise, according to the Associated Press.
Questions about whether the criminal proceedings against Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair were improperly swayed by outside influences halted testimony that had been expected from the main accuser in the case, the AP reported.
The woman, an Army captain, was to be questioned by defense attorneys about her tearful account last week that the married superior officer twice forced her to engage in oral sex when she tried to break off their secret three-year affair, according to the AP.
The military judge hearing the case at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, instead dismissed jurors for the day and took up a motion that Sinclair's attorneys filed after the government disclosed new email evidence over the weekend, the AP reported.
Lead defense attorney Richard Scheff said emails between military officials at Fort Bragg showed the prosecution of Sinclair was driven by political pressure to crack down on sexual violence in the armed forces rather than by the strength of the evidence, according to the AP.
Sinclair's defense has said he offered to plead guilty to adultery, which is a crime in the military, and conduct unbecoming of an officer in exchange for the sex assault charges being dropped, the AP reported.
Scheff said the convening authority in the case, Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, rejected the offer after the accuser's special victims counsel warned Anderson in a letter in December that the guilty plea "would have an adverse effect on my client and the Army's fight against sexual assault," according to the AP.
Emails provided to the defense made it "crystal clear that that affected General Anderson's decision," the attorney added, the AP reported. The judge, Colonel James Pohl, voiced frustration that government emails written as long as two months ago and previously sought by the defense were only coming to light in the middle of the trial.
Judge Pohl questioned why prosecutors should be allowed to call Anderson as a witness after they rejected such a request from Sinclair's lawyers, according to the AP.
Anderson, who now commands international forces in Afghanistan, testified by phone from the Swedish embassy in Kabul, the AP reported.
He did not recall reading the letter from the accuser's attorney, though an email he wrote in December suggested he had, and said neither its political contents nor anyone above him in the chain of command persuaded him to reject Sinclair's plea offer, according to the AP.
"I asked one simple question, what does the victim want to do, and the answer was she wants to proceed to trial," Anderson said during his testimony, according to the AP. "That's what I based my decision on."
Pohl took a recess to consider whether outside influences had improperly infused the case. The defense is seeking to have the sex charges dismissed, the AP reported. The judge also raised the possibility of a mistrial.
