At Court-Martial, Testimony That Soldier Who Committed Suicide Was to Be Transferred

The officer, Capt. Sean Allred, said the transfer had been scheduled to take place as early as Oct. 4, 2011. But a day earlier, Private Chen climbed into a guard tower on the outpost, put a gun under his chin and shot himself through the head.

The testimony came on the fifth day in the court-martial of one of the eight soldiers implicated by the government in the suicide of Private Chen, 19, a Chinese-American soldier who was born and raised in Lower Manhattan.

The soldier, Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, is accused of subjecting Private Chen to hazing, racial slurs and other abuse — treatment that prosecutors say helped drive the private to take his own life.

Sergeant Holcomb is charged with negligent homicide, reckless endangerment and other crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted on all counts, he faces a possible prison sentence of up to 13 1/2 years, officials said.

Defense lawyers, however, have argued that Private Chen was driven to suicide because he was distraught over his failures as a soldier and because his parents, both Chinese immigrants, had disowned him. His parents denied that allegation in testimony last week. Defense witnesses have testified that Private Chen told them his parents had disowned him because he deployed to Afghanistan.

Captain Allred, who was not stationed on Private Chen’s outpost but would frequently visit from his command post on a nearby base, said that he did not receive any reports from his subordinates about mistreatment of lower-ranked soldiers by their superiors on the outpost. But he said, using the acronym for noncommissioned officers, that among the lower-ranked enlisted soldiers in his company, “the fear of NCOs is very high.”

The case is expected to go to the 10-member jury on Monday.

Along with Captain Allred and other witnesses called by the defense on Saturday, a forensic psychologist with the military said there appeared to be many possible problems that could have contributed to Private Chen’s suicide.

The psychologist, Maj. Samantha Benesh, said that based on her review of an array of records — including the military’s investigative case files, military court transcripts and earlier witness testimony — there seemed to be “numerous stresses present at the time of his death,” including Private Chen’s relationship with his parents, his weaknesses as a soldier, the challenges of deployment in a hostile environment and repeated punitive or corrective measures for poor performance, known in military jargon as “smoking.”

The pressure compounded over time, Major Benesh said, “until the stress load became overwhelming.”

Seemingly capturing the murkiness of the debate, and the challenge to the jury, she added: “There’s a lot that we don’t know.”