Luxembourg, February 27 (RHC)-- There is a new development in the case of a U.S. soldier who went AWOL in 2007 and sought asylum in Germany because he opposed the war in Iraq.

The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice ruled that to obtain asylum, André Shepherd would need to show that he would have been involved in war crimes if he had followed orders to deploy to Iraq.

In Munich, André Shepherd said: "What happens when you have a soldier, such as myself, who isn’t a conscientious objector from the perspective that I want to reject every single war, because of course defensive wars I find to be okay? You have to defend yourself, of course. But Iraq wasn’t one of those. They didn’t help the Iraqi people at all. They certainly didn’t help the American people at all. And all we have is senseless death and destruction, and, of course, the rise of ISIS. So, why would I want to take part in that?"

The final decision in Shepherd’s case will be made by a German court.