Former SEAL Team 6 Member Kept Photo Of Osama’s Dead Body As Trophy

Harrison Lee10 years ago

May 1, 2011 is a day that’ll be engrained in the mind of every American. It is the day that President Obama stood before his podium to announce that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a raid performed by SEAL Team 6. Matthew Bissonnette was a member of that raid. He was one of the guys who pulled the trigger on Osama. He even went on to write a best-selling novel about the whole thing. Oh yeah, and he took an unauthorized photo of the dead body to keep for himself.

From The Intercept:

Two people familiar with the probe said the current investigation, led by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, expanded after Bissonnette agreed to hand over a hard drive containing an unauthorized photo of [Osama bin Laden]’s corpse. … The retired SEAL voluntarily provided investigators with a copy of his hard drive as part of an agreement not to prosecute him for unlawfully possessing classified material, according to the two people familiar with the deal.

It’s not uncommon for warriors to proudly show off their kills. Maybe that’s just what Matthew was doing? Just like a hunter will mount a deer’s head in their living room, he wanted to be reminded of his kill. The story would have been 1 trillion times better had the DoJ walked into his house to find a framed photo of it hanging in the family room. Imagine what that conversation would have been like.

“Oh, that old thing? Yeah, I remember that hunt very fondly. We had to put a thousand rounds in him to make sure the thing went down without a fight.”

Apparently holding that kind of material is unlawful since the photo was discovered after the Department of Justice launched a probe into Matthew once they heard he had some classified material in his hands. While Bissonnette won’t face any repercussions for holding the photo, he is still being investigated for possible business ventures he made while still active with the SEALs..

[via The Intercept]

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