Asylum Hearing Held for an AWOL U.S. Soldier in Germany

An asylum hearing was held yesterday in the German city of Karlsruhe for a U.S. soldier who went AWOL In the spring of 2007 after he was ordered to redeploy to Iraq for a second tour. 31-year old André Lawrence Shepherd decided that he could not return to what he referred to as a completely illegal war. He went AWOL from his base in Germany and spent the next 19 months on the run. In November of last year he became the second U.S. soldier to request asylum in Germany. Another U.S. soldier applied for asylum in 2007 but later withdrew his application. If Shepherd's application is approved he will become the first U.S. soldier to receive asylum. 

The hearing was described as a fact-finding session; Shepherd was questioned for several hours about the procedure for leaving the U.S. military, his motivation for enlisting and why he decided to leave. The hearing was a closed-door session intended to determine if he had a valid reason to go AWOL. 

According to a NATO statute he could have been arrested and returned to stand trial in a military court however under the Geneva Refugee Convention, Germany is required to provide Shepherd protection from arrest until a decision has been reached on his asylum status. When the application for asylum was first made the U.S. Army said they would not be involved in the case because it involved a federal agencies of a sovereign foreign government and therefore it would be handled by the State Department. According to the state department less than 1% percent of soldiers dessert and it is not common for their reason to be conscientious objection. German politicians and refugee organizations alike have asked the government to support the Shepherd's application for asylum. 

Shepherd's case rest interlay on the illegality of the war and he is hopeful he will be granted asylum based on the Nuremberg trials that established that even a soldier is responsible for his own actions, just following orders is not an excuse. He is also counting on the fact that Germany strongly opposed to the war in Iraq to work in his favor. 
Shepherd fears that a military court will unfairly prosecute him if he returns to the U.S. According to U.S. law deserting during a time of war can carry a death penalty.