A U.S. Army sergeant is being kicked out of the service over a 2011 incident in which he and his captain confronted an Afghan police commander who had brutally raped a local boy.
As part of a Special Forces team operating in Kunduz Province in 2011, Capt. Dan Quinn and Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland were working side-by-side with local Afghan police forces. That September, an interpreter claimed the police commander, Abdul Rahman, had tied a 12-year-old boy to a post in his house and raped him repeatedly for 10 days, according to Fox News. And when the boy’s mother tried to save him, she was beaten.
The commander was engaging in “bacha bazi” — which literally translates to “boy play” — a practice in which young boys are coerced into sexual slavery, often being dressed up as women and made to dance and serve tea. The practice was forbidden under the Taliban, but it flourished after the 2001 invasion as U.S. forces were told by their commanders not to intervene.
Via Fox News:
Martland said he and Quinn then confronted the commander after Quinn confirmed the allegations with village elders and others. He said Quinn got a “first-hand confession” but “the child rapist laughed it off and referenced that it was only a boy.”
Martland and Quinn — true to the Special Forces motto to “liberate the oppressed” — freed the boy from sexual slavery by beating the crap out of the commander and kicking him off their camp. “Captain Quinn picked him up and threw him,” Martland said in his statement. “I [proceeded to] body slam him multiple times.”
Instead of accolades, the soldiers got punished for their actions in handling the child rapist. Quinn lost his command and was pulled out of Afghanistan, and later left the Army. Martland received a reprimand from a one-star general for his “flagrant departure from the integrity, professionalism, and even-tempered leadership” expected of a Green Beret, The News Tribune reported.
Army Col. Steven Johnson told The Daily Beast they “put their team’s life at risk” with local leaders by engaging in “vigilante” justice, and suggested the pair should have instead reported it to Afghan civilian justice authorities.
“To say that you’ve got to be nice to the child rapist because otherwise the other child rapists might not like you is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told The Daily Beast.
Reporting the heinous practice to authorities would be nice if the justice system wasn’t so broken. According to The Diplomat, “bacha bazi” remains outlawed under the new government, but there is little enforcement, and evidence suggests the practice is on the rise.
Martland is due to be involuntarily discharged no later than Nov. 1, according to The Army Times. Meanwhile, Rep. Hunter is pressing Defense Secretary Ash Carter to intervene and allow him to stay in the Army.