Navy SEAL from cleared in Iraqi abuse case

[PapoZalsa]

BAGHDAD (AP) -- A U.S. military judge on Friday cleared a Navy SEAL from Yorktown of any wrongdoing in the alleged beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding the grisly 2004 killings of four American contractors.

The Blackwater contractors' burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah, in what became a major turning point in the Iraq war.

After a daylong trial and fewer than two hours of mulling the evidence, Navy Judge Cmdr. Tierny Carlos found Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe not guilty of dereliction of duty, a spokesman said.

It was the second verdict in as many days to throw out charges against three SEALs, the Navy's elite special forces unit, accused in the abuse case. The trials have drawn fire from at least 20 members of Congress and other Americans who it see it as coddling terrorists to overcompensate for the notorious Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

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