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Washington • Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive by the Taliban for five years and freed in exchange for five detainees in Guantanamo Bay, will face charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in a general court-martial, the Army announced Monday.

If convicted, Bergdahl could get life in prison on the misbehavior charge and up to five years for desertion. He also could be dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank and made to forfeit all pay.

Bergdahl, 29, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province on June 30, 2009. He was released in the prisoner swap in late May 2014, which touched off a firestorm of criticism, with some in Congress accusing President Barack Obama of jeopardizing the safety of a nation for a deserter.

A date for an arraignment hearing at Fort Bragg, N.C., will be announced later.

Bergdahl's attorney, Eugene Fidell, said the convening authority — a high-ranking officer charged with deciding whether evidence warrants a court-martial — did not follow the advice of a preliminary-hearing officer.

Lt. Col. Mark Visger had recommended that Bergdahl's case be referred to a special court-martial, which is a misdemeanor-level forum. That limits the maximum punishment to reduction in rank, a bad-conduct discharge and a term of up to a year in prison.

The U.S. Army Forces Command charged Bergdahl on March 25 with "desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty" and "misbehavior before the enemy by endangering the safety of a command, unit or place."

Fidell has argued his client is being charged twice for the same action, saying in a previous television interview that "It's unfortunate that someone got creative in drafting the charge sheet and figured out two ways to charge the same thing."

Fidell, a military-justice expert, complained about political figures who have made derogatory statements about Bergdahl.

Fidell asked that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump "cease his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation against our client. In October, Trump called Bergdahl a "traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed."

Bergdahl's disappearance and the possibility that he might face light punishment had angered many in the military, given that his fellow soldiers took considerable risks in searching for him. The Pentagon has said no one died in searching for Bergdahl.

Bergdahl hasn't spoken publicly about his decision to walk away from his post or his five-year imprisonment by the Taliban and the prisoner swap that secured his return to the United States. But during the past several months, he spoke extensively with screenwriter Mark Boal, who shared about 25 hours of the recorded interviews with Sarah Koenig for her popular podcast, "Serial."

Bergdahl said in the interviews that he walked off his base to cause a crisis that would catch the attention of military brass. He wanted to warn them about what he believed were serious problems with leadership in his unit. And he wanted to prove himself as a real-life action hero, like someone out of a movie.

"As a private first-class, nobody is going to listen to me," Bergdahl said in the first episode of the podcast, released Thursday. "I was trying to prove to myself, I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me ... I was capable of being what I appeared to be," Bergdahl said. "I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world I was the real thing."

He also discusses the psychological torment of being held captive.

"How do I explain to a person that just standing in an empty dark room hurts?" Bergdahl asked. "A person asked me, 'Why does it hurt? Does your body hurt?' Yes, your body hurts, but it's more than that. It's mental, like, almost confused. ... I would wake up not even remembering what I was."