U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Berghdal is pictured in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Army and received by Reuters on May 31, 2014. REUTERS/U.S. Army/Handout via Reuters 
 
 AUSTIN, Texas U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and became a Taliban prisoner for five years, will face court-martial with a potential life sentence, the Army said on Monday. 
 
 Bergdahl, 29, was charged earlier this year with desertion and endangering U.S. troops and could face the life sentence if convicted of the latter, more serious offense. 
 
 In ordering the court martial on Monday, Army General Robert Abrams did not follow the recommendation of a preliminary hearing which, according to Bergdahl's lawyer, called for Bergdahl to face a proceeding that could impose a potential maximum penalty of a year in confinement. 
 
 Bergdahl's lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said the defense team "had hoped the case would not go in this direction." He also urged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called Bergdahl a "dirty, rotten traitor," to "cease his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation against our client." 
 
 Bergdahl disappeared on foot on June 30, 2009, from Combat Outpost Mest-Malak in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and was subsequently captured by the Taliban. 
 
 He left his post to draw attention to "leadership failure" in his unit, Bergdahl said last week on the popular podcast Serial, which is focusing a season on his case. 
 
 The Idaho native suffered torture, abuse and neglect at the hands of Taliban forces, including months of beatings and being confined for 3-1/2 years to a metal cage barely big enough to stand in, a military expert testified previously. 
 
 The head of the Army team that investigated Bergdahl has said he does not believe he should face jail time. 
 
 The official search for Bergdahl lasted 45 days, but the United States spent years trying to determine his whereabouts and bring him home. 
 
 He was freed in a prisoner swap in May 2014 that sent five Taliban leaders held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, where they had to remain for a year. The deal drew heavy criticism from Republicans. 
 
 Major General Kenneth Dahl, who led the military's investigation of Bergdahl's case, testified at a military probable cause hearing in September that Bergdahl was not a Taliban sympathizer and no soldiers directly involved in the search for him were killed. 
 
 Jeff Addicott, an Army officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for 20 years and a law professor at St. Mary's University, said Bergdahl, who has been stationed at a base in San Antonio, Texas, may now be confined to his base. 
 
 "He is going to be watched very closely now because he has left his place of duty before in a combat zone and he may try to do it again," he said. 
 
 Bergdahl may also seek to have his case heard by a judge instead of a panel of military personnel, which would likely include members who were deployed in Afghanistan, he said. 
 
 The date of Bergdahl's arraignment hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will be announced later, the Army said. U.S. military prosecutors did not comment on Monday's decision. 
 
 (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) 

 The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) provides for three different types of courts-martial: summary, special, and general. These forms of courts-martial differ in their make-up and the punishments which may be imposed. 
 
 The Military Rules of Evidence apply to all classifications of courts-martial. Moreover, an accused must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 
 
 Summary Court-Martial 
 
 A summary court-martial consists of one commissioned officer, and may try only enlisted personnel for noncapital offenses. The punishment which may be imposed depends on the grade of the accused. 
 
 For enlisted members above E-4, a summary court-martial may impose any punishment not forbidden by the law except death, dismissal , dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, confinement for more than 1 month, hard labor without confinement for more than 45 days, restriction to specified limits for more than 2 months, or forfeiture of more than two-thirds of 1 month's pay. 
 
 In the case of all other enlisted members, the court-martial may also impose confinement for not more than one month and may reduce the accused to the lowest pay grade, E-1. 
 
 The accused has the absolute right to refuse trial by summary court-martial. The accused does not have the right to representation by an attorney. The accused does have the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses and produce evidence, and to testify or remain silent. 
 
 Special Court-Martial 
 
 A special court-martial consists of not less than three members and a military judge, or an accused may be tried by military judge alone on their request. 
 
 A special court-martial is often characterized as a misdemeanor court, and may try all persons subject to the UCMJ, including enlisted members, officers and midshipmen. 
 
 A special court-martial may impose any punishment authorized under R.C.M.1003 except death, dishonorable discharge, dismissal, confinement for more than 1 year, hard labor without confinement for more than 3 months, forfeiture of pay exceeding two-thirds pay per month, or any forfeiture of pay for more than 1 year. . 
 
 General Court-Martial 
 
 A general court-martial consists of not less than five members and a military judge, or an accused may be tried by military judge alone upon request of the accused. 
 
 A general court-martial is often characterized as a felony court, and may try all persons subject to the UCMJ, including enlisted members, officers, and midshipmen. 
 
 A general court-martial may adjudge any punishment not prohibited by the UCMJ, including death when specifically authorized. 

 A top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban captivity. 
 
 The decision by Gen. Robert B. Abrams, head of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., means that Sergeant Bergdahl, 29, faces a possible life sentence. That is a far more serious penalty than had been recommended by the Army’s investigating officer, who testified at the sergeant’s preliminary hearing in September that prison would be “inappropriate.” 
 
 According to Sergeant Bergdahl’s defense lawyers, the Army lawyer who presided over the preliminary hearing also recommended that he face neither jail time nor a punitive discharge and that he go before an intermediate tribunal known as a “special court-martial,” where the most severe penalty possible would be a year of confinement. 
 
 Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who were sent to search for him after he disappeared. 

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The attorney for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in exchange for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay, says the soldier's case has been referred for trial by a general court-martial. 
 
 Attorney Eugene Fidell says the convening authority did not follow the advice of the preliminary hearing officer who had recommended that Bergdahl's case be moved only to a special misdemeanor-level military court. Fidell said in a statement Monday that he had hoped the case would not go in this direction. 
 
 Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was held by the Taliban for nearly five years after he walked off his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. 
 
 He was charged in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
– A lawyer for Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier accused of deserting his Army post in Afghanistan in 2009 before being captured and held by the Taliban for almost five years, says his client will stand trial before a general court-martial, Reuters reports. Despite the advice of a preliminary-hearing officer that Bergdahl's case be moved to a special misdemeanor-level military court, the ruling authority went against what Bergdahl attorney Eugene Fidell had hoped for, he said in a statement, per the AP. The decision by Gen. Robert B. Abrams means that Bergdahl, 29, faces a possible life sentence on charges of desertion and endangering troops, even though Lt. Col. Mark Visger, the Army lawyer who presided over the preliminary hearing, agreed with an investigating officer's recommendation that jail time for Bergdahl would be "inappropriate," the New York Times reports. Visger had instead suggested an intermediate-level court-martial, in which the harshest punishment facing Bergdahl would have been a year behind bars, the paper notes. (Bergdahl is the star of the new season of the Serial podcast.)