The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged today with 17 counts of premeditated murder, a capital offense that could lead to the death penalty in the massacre of Afghan civilians, the U.S. military said.
The 38-year-old soldier is accused of walking off a U.S. military base with his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, before dawn on March 11, killing nine Afghan children and eight adults and burning some of the bodies. It was the worst allegation of civilian killings by an American and has severely strained U.S.-Afghan ties at a critical time in the decade-old war.
It’s unclear what prompted the killings, but the case has drawn new attention to the debate over mental health care for the troops, who have experienced record suicide rates and high incidences of post-traumatic stress and brain injuries during repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Six other Afghans — a man, a woman and four children — were wounded in Panjwai district of Kandahar province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. Bales also was charged with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault in those cases, according to Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan who disclosed information from the charging document.
Bales, a father of two from Lake Tapps in Pierce County, was officially informed of the 29 charges just before noon local time at the U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he is confined.
His civilian attorney, John Henry Browne, said today that he believes the government will have a hard time proving its case and that his client’s mental state will be an important issue. Bales was on his fourth tour of duty, having served three tours in Iraq, where he suffered head and foot injuries.
The decision to charge him with premeditated murder suggests that prosecutors plan to argue that he consciously conceived the killings. A military legal official for U.S. forces in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case, noted that premeditated murder is not something that has to have been contemplated for a long time.
See “AP News” under the “Nation/World” dropdown at the top for the latest developments.
