‘was going to die’

‘Nobody Had a Problem With It’: Eddie Gallagher Now Claims SEALs Intended to Kill Unarmed ISIS Fighter

“We killed that guy... Our intention was to kill him. Everybody was on board,” he said during a recent podcast interview.

Retired Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher—who was acquitted of murdering a 17-year-old ISIS prisoner in 2017—has admitted to deliberately killing the unarmed soldier, Task & Purpose reports. In 2019, Gallagher was charged for stabbing the ISIS fighter to death in Iraq, and was ultimately found not guilty of murder in a case that attracted the attention of President Trump. But during a recent interview with “The Line” podcast, Gallagher conceded, “We killed that guy...Our intention was to kill him. Everybody was on board.”

Gallagher’s defense had always claimed that the ex-special operations chief and his team had given the captured ISIS fighter medical help, but were unable to save him. Several members of his platoon testified against him at trial, accusing him of murder. In the podcast interview, Gallagher said he and his team planned to render “medical treatment on him until he’s gone.” “I mean, he was going to die, regardless,” he said. “We weren’t taking any prisoners.” He also claimed that all of the SEALs involved agreed to torture the soldier until he was dead. “I didn’t stab that dude. That dude died from all the medical treatments that were done—and there was plenty of medical treatments that were done to him,” he said. Gallagher added that he cut an “airway” in the teen’s throat “just for practice. I was practicing to see how fast I could do one in.”

The ex-SEAL’s attorney has maintained that the comments made during the podcast do not change the outcome of the trial. Regardless of what the soldiers did to the ISIS soldier, “cause of death was Hellfire missile,” he said.