Robert Bales wasn't alone

[LtDan]

"Robert Bales wasn't alone", said child witness to the Afghanistan slaughter.
The Army version of Afghan massacre becomes more and more delirious with every passing day.

 

[waltky]

Bales gonna avoid the death penalty...

Lawyer: Bales to admit to Afghan massacre in plea deal
May 29, 2013 > The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers during one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war has agreed to plead guilty in a deal to avoid the death penalty, his attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was "crazed" and "broken" when he slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby, lawyer John Henry Browne said. But his client's mental state didn't rise to the level of a legal insanity defense, Browne said, and Bales will plead guilty next week.

The outcome of the case carries high stakes. The Army had been trying to have Bales executed, and Afghan villagers have demanded it. In interviews with the AP in Kandahar last month, relatives of the victims became outraged at the notion Bales might escape the death penalty. "For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter. "A prison sentence doesn't mean anything," said Said Jan, whose wife and three other relatives died. "I know we have no power now. But I will become stronger, and if he does not hang, I will have my revenge."

Any plea deal must be approved by the judge as well as the commanding general at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where Bales is being held. A plea hearing is set for June 5, said Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, an Army spokesman. He said he could not immediately provide other details. "The judge will be asking questions of Sgt. Bales about what he did, what he remembers and his state of mind," said Browne, who told the AP the commanding general has already approved the deal. "The deal that has been worked out ... is they take the death penalty off the table, and he pleads as charged, pretty much."

A sentencing-phase trial set for September will determine whether Bales is sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole. Browne previously indicated Bales remembered little from the night of the massacre, and he said that was true in the early days after the attack. But as further details and records emerged, Bales began to remember what he did, the lawyer said, and he will admit to "very specific facts" about the shootings. Browne would not elaborate on what his client will tell the judge.

More Lawyer: Bales to admit to Afghan massacre in plea deal - U.S. - Stripes

 

[waltky]

Bales admits no good reason for massacre of Afghan civilians...

US soldier says no reason for Afghan civilian massacre
Fri, Jun 07, 2013 - The US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them women and children who were asleep in their villages, pleaded guilty to murder and acknowledged that there was “not a good reason in this world” for his actions.

Robert Bales’ plea on Wednesday ensures that he will avoid the death penalty for the nighttime slayings that so inflamed tensions with Afghans that the US military briefly suspended combat operations there. Prosecutors say Bales slipped away before dawn on March 11 last year from his base in Kandahar Province. Armed with a 9mm pistol and a rifle equipped with a grenade launcher, he attacked a village called Alkozai, then returned and woke up a fellow soldier to tell him about it.

The soldier did not believe Bales and went back to sleep. Bales then left to attack a second village known as Najiban. Relatives of the dead were outraged at the idea that Bales could escape execution when they spoke to the Associated Press in April. “A prison sentence doesn’t mean anything,” said Said Jan, whose wife and three other relatives were killed. “I know we have no power now. But I will become stronger, and if he does not hang, I will have my revenge.” A jury will decide in August whether Bales is sentenced to life with or without the possibility of parole. Wednesday’s proceedings marked the first time the 39-year-old Bales provided a public account of the massacre.

At one point, the judge asked Bales why he killed the villagers. “I’ve asked that question a million times since then,” Bales said. “There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did.” Survivors who testified by video link from Afghanistan during a hearing last year vividly recalled the carnage. The deaths raised questions about the frequency of combat deployments and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Bales was serving his fourth deployment. Until the attacks, he had a good, if undistinguished, military record in a decade-long career.

He suffered from PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, and he had been drinking contraband alcohol and snorting Valium the night of the killings, his lawyers say. Bales said he was also taking three doses of steroids each week to make himself “smaller, leaner, more fit for the mission,” and to help him recover quickly after rigorous activity. Given Bales’ prior deployments and apparent PTSD, military law experts have suggested that a jury is unlikely to sentence him to death. US Defense attorney John Henry Browne had sought to place blame with the military for sending Bales back to war.

US soldier says no reason for Afghan civilian massacre - Taipei Times