At around midnight on June 30, 2009, Bergdahl, a private first class with the US Army, abandoned his post in eastern Afghanistan. He was captured by the Taliban and held captive for five years before being returned to the United States in exchange for five Guantanamo prisoners.
The precise motivation and circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s disappearance have remained a subject of debate, but a sworn statement filed by Army prosecutors reveals he may have planned to become a Russian hitman.
"I was a good friend of Bergdahl and spent a good deal of time with him, leading up to his disappearance our conversations became focused on his fantasy of being in the Russian mob as a hitman or assassin," Staff Sgt. Shane Cross told Army investigators, according to The Hill.
"He mentioned his plan would be to go through Pakistan and into India and join the Russian mob," Cross said. "Prior to the deployment he had claimed to speak Russian, that he had learned while working on a fishing boat that traveled to Europe."
Bergdahl is said to have related this information to Cross hours before he walked off his post.
Facing charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, Bergdahl and his attorneys have claimed that his goal in leaving his post was to alert Army leadership to systemic problems within his unit. Cross’s statement will be used by prosecutors to portray the sergeant was driven by unrealistic and romantic goals.
"When viewed in the context with the accused’s statements about his desire for adventure and boredom with the mission, the evidence of prior acts support that the accused’s behavior was intentional," reads a motion filed by prosecutors.
In March, documents revealed that Kim Dellacorva-Tate, an old friend of Bergdahl, told investigators that the latter attempted to join the French Foreign Legion, flying to Paris in 2005.
"He said they laughed at him because he was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 19-year-old kid," she said.
Jason Fry, who served with Bergdahl, described him as a man unsatisfied with routine deployments.
"He wasn’t happy that they were sitting around," Fry told investigators. "He told me that if this deployment is lame, he was going to walk into the mountains of Pakistan."
Berghdal will face a court martial in February. If found guilty, he faces a possible life sentence.
