Massacre suspect charged
March 23, 2012
Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is also facing dereliction of duty charges and other violations of US military law, US forces said in a statement released in Kabul.
links#The 38-year-old Bales allegedly left his base in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in the dark of night on March 11 and went on a shooting rampage in two nearby villages that killed 17 Afghan civilians as they slept. The victims included nine children and eight adults. Afghan officials had previously put the death toll at 16.
Bales, a father of two from the US state of Washington, is being held in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and is to be tried in the US. The Afghan parliament had called for the Army staff sergeant to be publicly tried in Afghanistan. Bales could face the death penalty, according to US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
'No memory'
Bales had served three tours in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan. John Henry Browne, the suspect's lawyer, has said that Bales had "no memory" of the incident and that US authorities had no proof of what happened during the evening in question.
Bales joined the Army in 2001 after a Florida investment job went sour. He also had a Seattle-area home condemned and struggled to make payments on another home. In 2003, Bales was hit by a $1.5 million (1.13 million euros) arbitration ruling after an elderly couple charged that their holdings were decimated.
"I am not putting the war on trial. But the war is on trial" said Brown, adding that he hoped to "help create a discussion about the war."
The massacre has sparked renewed debate over the health care of US veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars who have suffered from record suicide rates, post-traumatic stress syndrome and brain injuries over the past decade.
The March 11 massacre has further strained already tense relations between Washington and Kabul. In a separate incident prior to the shooting rampage, US military personnel burned copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, leading to a series of deadly protests and revenge attacks by the Taliban. The US maintains the burnings were accidental.
slk/pfd (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)