I actually would find embattled a bit of an unusual word choice for someone on trial for a crime outside of a broader context. If someone's arrested for murder, we'd call them a suspected murderer or alleged murderer, not someone embattled.

As you say, I associate embattled more with, say, an executive caught up in a scandal or who is likely to be dismissed for poor performance.

"alleged" or "suspected" is actually perhaps a better example of the sort of not-always-correctly-interpreted-by-the-readership journalistic phrase PG intended to highlight, since "alleged" can both mean "this person is [probably going to be] on trial for this offence, so because it's so serious we're respecting the legal process by not asserting they did it even though there's substantial or even blindingly obvious proof" or "we're just reporting something someone once claimed and because it's so open to dispute we have no desire to get sued by making the claim our own"