FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) - Prosecutors were rebuffed from harnessing the most contentious issue surrounding the court martial of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl when a judge ruled out any evidence that soldiers were wounded while searching for him.

The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, decided Friday to disallow any such evidence because, he said, the risk is too great shop qua tang that it military jurors would act on emotion rather than logic, creating an unfair bias against the defendant.

Nance wrote that there's "ample" other evidence supporting the argument that Bergdahl's comrades undertook dangerous search missions in Afghanistan that brought them into contact with the enemy.

FILE - In this Jan. 12, 2016, file photo, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl arrives for a pretrial hearing at Fort Bragg, N.C. Bergdahl is due back in court for a pretrial hearing on accusations that he endangered fellow service members by walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009. The Friday, Dec. 16 hearing will likely include further arguments on whether prosecutors should be allowed to admit evidence of injuries to service members who searched for Bergdahl. (AP Photo/Ted Richardson, File)

"However, the government may not put on evidence of actual injuries suffered by any service members in conducting operations to recover the accused," he wrote.

Bergdahl is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy; the latter could put him in prison for life. Bergdahl has said he walked off his post in 2009 to alert higher-ups to what he felt were problems with his unit.

Questions about whether soldiers were injured or killed searching for Bergdahl have long surrounded the case. President-elect Donald Trump is among the critics who repeated claims that lives were lost.

However, a general who investigated Bergdahl's disappearance has testified that he found no evidence that service members died searching for him.

Prosecutors have focused on soldiers wounded during a firefight involving a half-dozen U.S. service members embedded with 50 members of the Afghan National Army, about a week after Bergdahl left his post. An officer involved in that mission has testified that its sole purpose was to find him.

The group was attacked near a town in Afghanistan on July 8, 2009. U.S. Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Mark Allen was shot in the head, and prosecutors say he uses a wheelchair and is unable to communicate.