US News

Navy investigating 2 SEALs for strangling death of Green Beret

Two members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 are being investigated for strangling a Green Beret while he was stationed in Mali in June, according to a report Sunday.

Navy criminal investigators launched a probe into the commandos after Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a veteran of two deployments to Afghanistan, was found dead June 4 in housing he shared with other special operations forces at the embassy in the Malian capital of Bamako, the New York Times reported.

Melgar’s superiors in Germany suspected foul play and immediately sent an investigator to the scene, the newspaper reported.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command examined the circumstances around the 34-year-old Melgar’s death for months and then turned it over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in September.

No one has been charged in Melgar’s death, but two Navy SEALs, who have not been identified, have been removed from Mali and placed on administrative leave, the report said.

Melgar’s death was ruled a homicide-strangulation.

Soldiers in the Green Beret community have been shaken by the killing and have been left to speculate whether there was bad blood between Melgar and the SEALs or whether he might have uncovered some illegal activity they were involved in and they executed him, the newspaper reported.

A spokesman for NCIS said he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation.

The revelations about Melgar’s death come as four American soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush in Niger, which borders Mali in Africa.

Military officials are still trying to determine what happened and why one of the soldiers, Sgt. La David Johnson, was found dead two days later after getting separated from the group.

SEAL Team 6 carried out the mission that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. It also rescued Capt. Richard Phillips and his crew after Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama in 2009.