Four US Commandos Charged in Strangling of Army Green Beret in Africa

WASHINGTON — Two members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 and two Marine Corps Special Operations troops have been charged in the strangling of an Army Green Beret last year in Mali, a highly unusual fratricidal killing that cast a spotlight on little-known military missions in Africa.

The two Navy commandos and the two Marine Raiders face charges that include murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, involuntary manslaughter and lying to investigators in the June 2017 death of the Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, 34, a veteran of two tours in Afghanistan.

The charges against the four commandos, announced by the Navy on Thursday, were brought a day earlier by Rear Adm. Charles W. Rock, the commander of Navy Region Mid-Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia. Rock was assigned this month by Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer to oversee the case. A preliminary hearing in military court in Norfolk is scheduled for Dec. 10 to determine whether the four men face court-martial or some other punishment.

Melgar’s killing was one of several violent deaths last year under mysterious circumstances for U.S. troops on little-understood missions in West Africa. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush in October 2017 in neighboring Niger while conducting what was initially described as a reconnaissance patrol but was later revealed to be part of a much more dangerous counterterrorism mission against Islamic militants in the area.

According to a preliminary report in September 2017 by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, the two Navy commandos said they had found Melgar “unresponsive” after wrestling with him in housing they shared with him in Bamako, the capital of Mali. The SEALs were on a secret counterterrorism mission in the impoverished West African nation.

But according to the new charges, which were first reported by The Daily Beast, the four Navy and Marine commandos “drove to the Marine quarters” in Bamako “to obtain duct tape,” then went to the housing the Navy SEALs shared with Melgar.

Once there, the commandos “entered the bedroom of SSG Melgar by breaking through his locked door,” restrained him with the duct tape, and “strangled SSG Melgar by placing him in a chokehold,” according to the charges.

The Navy redacted the names of the accused in charge sheets released on Thursday. But military officials and news media reports have previously identified the two SEALs as Petty Officer 1st Class Tony E. DeDolph and Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews. The Marines have not been identified.

“If these allegations of misconduct are substantiated, they represent a violation of the trust and standards required of all service members,” said Capt. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the military’s Special Operations Command. “We trust our service members to safeguard our nation’s most sensitive interests and to do so with honor.”

Melgar, a graduate of Texas Tech University who joined the Army in 2012, was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the same unit whose soldiers were attacked by a much larger and heavily armed group of Islamic State fighters near the border between Niger and Mali in October 2017.

According to military officials, Melgar was part of a small team in Bamako that was assigned to help provide intelligence about Islamic militants in Mali to the U.S. ambassador there, Paul A. Folmsbee, to protect American personnel against attacks. The sergeant also helped assess which Malian army troops might be trained and equipped to build a counterterrorism force.

Melgar, a native of Lubbock, Texas, was about four months into what military officials said was a six-month tour in Mali.

The Navy SEALs were in the country on a clandestine mission to support French and Malian counterterrorism forces battling al-Qaida's branch in North and West Africa, known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, as well as smaller cells aligned with al-Qaida or the Islamic State. The Americans helped provide intelligence for missions, and had participated in at least two such operations in Mali before Melgar’s death.

During that period in Mali, tensions grew between Melgar and the other commandos.

The two Navy SEALs were under scrutiny in the theft of money from a fund used to pay confidential informants. An American service member who knew Melgar said he was under the impression that the sergeant had stumbled on the money-skimming scheme and reported it to the authorities, angering the Navy commandos. Melgar’s suspicions were first reported in The Daily Beast.

About 5 a.m. on June 4, after planning their assault, the four commandos confronted Melgar at the team house, according to military investigators. After restraining the sergeant with duct tape, military investigators said, DeDolph, a former professional mixed martial arts fighter, put Melgar into a chokehold.