Navy investigating two SEALs in connection with death of Green Beret: report

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is probing whether two members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 strangled an Army Green Beret to death in Mali earlier this year.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, 34, was found dead in his embassy housing in Mali in June. An investigating officer was immediately dispatched after the death, which has been ruled a homicide.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command spent months looking into the death before handing it off to NCIS. 

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No one has been charged in the murder, and the two Navy SEALs in question have been removed from Mali and placed on administrative leave, according to the Times.

Neither the Army nor Africa Command issued a statement after Melgar’s death, and they remained silent even after the two SEALs were classified as “persons of interest.”

Ed Buice, a spokesman for NCIS, confirmed that the agency had taken over the investigation into Melgar’s death, but declined to discuss details of the matter with the Times.

“NCIS does not discuss the details of ongoing investigations,” he said.

News of Melgar’s death came to light at the same time the Pentagon is investigating the circumstances surrounding an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger that left four U.S. soldiers dead.