A member of the Navy’s Seal Team 6 is set to take a guilty plea over his role in the death of a Green Beret in 2017, ABC News reported Thursday.
Navy Chief Petty Officer Adam Matthews was one of four service members who faced murder and involuntary manslaughter charges in the strangulation death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar in Mali.
{mosads}”On Thursday, SOC Adam Matthews will take full responsibility for his role in the tragic death of Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar,” Grover Baxley, Matthews’s attorney, told ABC.
Matthews will reportedly plead guilty to hazing, assault consummated by battery, burglary and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The murder and involuntary manslaughter charges will be dropped in exchange, Baxley said.
“He looks forward to detailing what happened that night in Mali almost two years ago, and hopes that his explanation of events will assist the Melgar family in finding some semblance of closure,” the attorney told ABC.
The cases of the other three officers involved in Melgar’s death, including two special operations Marines and one other member of Seal Team 6, are still pending.
The service members, who were in Mali as part of a counterterrorism mission related to the U.S. Embassy, allegedly broke into Melgar’s sleeping quarters, bound him with duct tape and strangled him to death in a chokehold.
“Our position is that Melgar is a hero and that this was a tragic and unforeseen accident,” Baxley said.