Bowe Bergdahl, the American army sergeant who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and became a prisoner of the Taliban for five years, will face court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering U.S. troops, the Army said on Monday, according to Reuters.
Bergdahl, 29, was charged with desertion earlier this year and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the more serious offense of endangering troops who searched for him in lawless areas of Afghanistan after his disappearance in 2009.
He was released by the Taliban in a controversial swap in which the United States released five Taliban prisoners it held in exchange for Bergdahl.
The date of his arraignment hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will be announced later, the U.S. Army Forces Command said in a statement Monday.
The head of the Army team that investigated Bergdahl has said he does not believe he should face jail time. Prosecutors contend he should be punished for leaving his post and causing a massive search operation.
The official search for Bergdahl lasted 45 days, but the United States spent years trying to determine his whereabouts and bring him home, noted Reuters.
Major General Kenneth Dahl, who led the military's investigation of Bergdahl's disappearance and capture, testified at a military probable cause hearing in September in San Antonio, Texas that Bergdahl was not a Taliban sympathizer and no soldiers directly involved in the search for him were killed.
Dahl characterized Bergdahl, who has been stationed at a joint base in San Antonio since his return to the United States, as an unrealistically idealistic soldier who left his post to report concerns about his unit's leadership to a general at another base.
News of the court-martial comes several days after the release of a new congressional report which says the prisoner swap for Bergdahl may have violated several laws.