Iraqi Family Identifies Their Son As ISIS Teen At Center Of Navy War Crimes Trial

Jamal Abdullah Naser stands behind the counter of the small grocery store where he works and watches for the first time a video of a wounded teenager, who he believes is his son, just before he was killed by a Navy SEAL.

His large hands dwarf the phone playing the Iraqi television footage of the teenager the day he died three years ago. His lined face is almost expressionless until a tear seeps from one of his eyes as the video shows the teenager, captured and sedated, telling the interviewer that his father beat him to try to stop him from joining ISIS.

The teenager in the video was at the heart of a war crimes trial last year. U.S. federal prosecutors accused Navy SEAL commander Edward "Eddie" Gallagher of crimes, including premeditated murder, by stabbing a teenage ISIS detainee with a hunting knife in May 2017. But the trial was upended by the explosive revelation of a medic who said in court that he — not Gallagher — had killed the teenager by putting his thumb over the breathing tube.