Bergdahl judge won’t allow evidence of injuries to soldiers

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Prosecutors were rebuffed from harnessing the most contentious issue surrounding the court martial of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl when a judge ruled out any evidence that soldiers were wounded while searching for him.

The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, decided late Friday to disallow any such evidence because, he said, the risk is too great that military jurors would act on emotion rather than logic, creating an unfair bias against the defendant.

Nance wrote that there’s “ample” other evidence supporting the argument that Bergdahl’s comrades undertook dangerous search missions in Afghanistan that brought them into contact with the enemy.

Prosecutors have focused on two soldiers wounded during a firefight in 2009 involving a half-dozen U.S. service members , about a week after Bergdahl left his post.