By JULIET LINDERMAN, CLAIRE GALOFARO and MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — A U.S. Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty.

A three-member panel of Marines said Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his zealous quest to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military.

Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors and mishandled classified information in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.

The board found that the government provided enough evidence to substantiate some of the bases for misconduct, including misuse of a government computer. Mast was cleared of allegations he made false official statements and failed to obey an order or regulation.

Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them. Mast helped the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in the U.S., Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has remained with his family ever since.

A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military. The worst outcome Mast might have faced was an other-than-honorable discharge.

Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North Carolina.

But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered into Mast’s file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to the Secretary of the Navy, who will close the case against Mast.

The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone. The Department of Justice has intervened and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing around the world.

The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that its decision to work with the Afghan government and International Committee of the Red Cross to reunite the child with her Afghan relatives “was consistent with international law and U.S. policy to take appropriate steps to facilitate the reunion of families separated during armed conflict.”

The department said it has insisted that Virginia courts return the child to the Afghan family.

The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the adoption should have never been granted. The case is stalled at the state Supreme Court.

Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret because lawyers were presenting classified information. Everyone present in the nondescript conference room was dressed identically in camouflage. And Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.

But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.

Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his commitment to Marine Corps values.

“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”

The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.

When she responded that getting the child to the United States was their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that a child would be better off in the U.S. rather than Afghanistan was a product of Western bias.

“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.”

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Galofaro reported from Louisville, Kentucky, and Mendoza from San Francisco. Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected].