FILE - This 2018 file photo provided by Andrea Gallagher shows her husband, Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who has been charged with murder in the 2017 death of an Iraqi war prisoner. Lawyers on Gallagher's defense team told The Associated Press that emails they and a reporter received from military prosecutors in the case contained tracking software. (Andrea Gallagher via AP, File)

SAN DIEGO - Attorneys for a Navy officer who supervised a SEAL accused of killing an Islamic State prisoner demanded prosecutors stop monitoring defence lawyer emails and put the case on hold, according to court documents obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Lawyers for Lt. Jacob Portier also asked a judge to hold a public hearing into the intrusion and the extent of its impact — or dismiss the case.

A Navy prosecutor acknowledged the tracking as part of an effort to find the source of document leaks after being confronted last week, defence lawyers said.

Leaks have plagued the case of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, who has pleaded not guilty to murder in the fatal stabbing of an injured teenage militant in 2017 in Iraq. Portier, Gallagher's platoon commander, is fighting charges of conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly conducting Gallagher's re-enlistment ceremony next to the corpse.

The case has become politically charged with GOP congress members calling for prosecutors to drop the case and President Donald Trump tweeting in advance of Gallagher being transferred from the brig to a naval hospital that the move was to honour "his past service to our country."

Defence lawyers want to know who approved the unusual snooping tactic and who is being targeted. If one of Portier's lawyers is under investigation, it could create a conflict to represent him and violate "the sacrosanct confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship," wrote Air Force Lt. Col. Nicholas McCue, one of Portier's defence lawyers.

Gallagher's attorney, Tim Parlatore, said he will seek dismissal of the case because of the intrusion or seek to have the prosecutors and judge removed from the case.

A Navy spokesman declined to comment.

The emails were sent to 13 members of the defence teams and to Carl Prine, a reporter and editor with the Navy Times newspaper who has broken several stories on the case based on leaked documents. None of the documents was classified, he said.

Parlatore noticed a suspicious logo of an American flag with a bald eagle perched on the scales of justice beneath the signature of Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, the lead prosecutor.

During a closed-door court meeting Friday in San Diego, defence lawyers complained about the emails and learned that the judge in Gallagher's case, Cmdr. Aaron Rugh, had held three private meetings with prosecutors and was aware of the investigation and software, attorney Jeremiah J. Sullivan III said in court documents.

Lawyers were told to contact Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Sheppard, a prosecutor in the federal court system, which is separate from military courts.

Sheppard did not return an email or voicemail seeking comment from AP. Kelly Thornton, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in San Diego, said in a statement that her office "is not handling the ongoing court martial proceedings involving Edward Gallagher and is not involved in the production or dissemination of discovery in that case."

It is not clear what role federal prosecutors might play in the investigation, but having another arm of the government looking into the leaks might not raise serious legal or constitutional questions, said David Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law School and Navy veteran. A separate investigation would provide a firewall to prevent information gleaned from the defence from being shared with prosecutors.

However, in this case, the emails came from the military prosecutor, which compromises the integrity of the effort, he said.

"The fact that they used the vehicle from the military prosecutor to get into the computers of the defence team makes this case unique and, to my mind, does taint it," Glazier said. "How can the defence now trust any communications they would get from the prosecution again and how do they trust that their computers don't now have some Trojan horse that could now be sharing privileged communications with the government?"

___

Melley contributed from Los Angeles.

News from © The Associated Press, 2019