No Discharge, No Appeal for Embattled Marine

BROOKLYN (CN) - A Marine reservist facing dismissal for passing along information to top brass about threats of a Taliban-sponsored attack on an Afghanistan base just before a teen opened fire and killed three Marines must wait for an official discharge order before he can appeal, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Major Jason Brezler sued the U.S. Marine Corps in Brooklyn Federal Court in December 2014, claiming that the corps tried to silence him and have him removed for passing on allegedly confidential documents about Afghan police chief Sarwar Jan and his band of teenage sex slaves that posed a threat to Marines at bases.

But U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco in Brooklyn said Brezler's request is premature because a board of inquiry has only recommended that he be ousted, and that the decision hasn't been finalized.

"The BOI's recommendation is not a final agency action," Bianco wrote.

"It is well settled that an agency action must be final before judicial review of that decision is available," the judge continued, adding that Brezler has "additional layers of process available to him" within the Department of Defense before any order is finalized.

Brezler said he and another Marine expelled Jan because he was kidnapping and keeping boys as sex slaves, trafficking drugs and giving weapons and Afghan police uniforms to the Taliban to carry out insider attacks. He says he created a dossier and sent it up the chain of command.

But Jan reemerged in July 2012. At that point a fellow Marine asked Brezler, who was in an Oklahoma classroom at the time, to forward that dossier.

Two weeks after issuing the dossier, one of the young men in Jan's entourage took an unsecured Afghan rifle, entered the gym on the base and opened fire, killing three Marines and injured.

"When he ran out of rounds, the murderer announced, 'I just did jihad,' and encourage other Afghans on [the base] to do the same," Brezler says.

Several Taliban-sponsored attacks continued on military bases thereafter, but officials "refused to conduct any investigation into this debacle" and instead launched a campaign to cover-up the incidents, he adds.

The Marines' top brass then went after him for blowing the whistle and sought to have him dismissed, he claims, stringing him up before the board of inquiry - which recommended he be honorably discharged.

But that final determination has not yet been made, the judge pointed out, making Brezler's request premature.

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