Robert Bales To Be Charged With 17 Counts Of Murder In Afghan Shooting Massacre, U.S. Official Says

In this Aug. 23, 2011 Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. (AP Photo/DVIDS, Spc. Ryan Hallock, File)

WASHINGTON — Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder, assault and a string of other offenses in the massacre of Afghan villagers as they slept, a U.S. official said.

The charges signed against Bales include 17 counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of aggravated assault as well as dereliction of duty and other violations of military law, the official said on condition of anonymity because the charges had not been announced.

The 38-year-old soldier and father of two who lives in Lake Tapps, Wash., is charged with going on a shooting rampage in two villages near his Southern Afghanistan military post in the early hours of March 11, gunning down nine Afghan children and eight adults and burning some of the victims' bodies.

The charges are to be read to Bales on Friday. He is being held in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and faces trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The killings were yet another blow to U.S-Afghan relations, following a series of missteps, including the accidental burning of Qurans, which prompted violent protests and revenge killings American troops in the war zone.

The brutal shooting rampage also prompted renewed debate in the United States about health care for the troops, who have experienced record suicide rates and high rates of post-traumatic stress and brain injuries during repeated deployments over a decade of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bales was on his fourth tour of duty, having served three tours in Iraq, where he suffered a head injury and a foot injury.

Bales' civilian attorney, John Henry Browne, has portrayed his client as a patriot, loving father and devoted husband who had been traumatized by a comrade's injury and sent into combat one too many times.

"I'm not putting the war on trial," Browne has said, "but the war is on trial." He added: "If I can help create a discussion about the war, that would be a great way for me to go out."

Army officials have said Bales was cleared for return to duty after his head injury.

Bales joined the Army in 2001 after a Florida investment business failed and after he had worked with a string of securities operations. Bales and a broker at one company were hit in 2003 with a $1.5 million arbitration ruling after an elderly couple charged that their holdings were decimated.

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Comments

[mrsunnice]

04:08 AM on 03/26/2012

Soldiers also become the victims of war.

[jenaford]

06:32 AM on 03/25/2012

Prayers to this warrior = he should have gone home a loooooong time ago,

[sheoples]

07:54 PM on 03/24/2012

10 years of wars in middle east = vietnam wars 2.0

afghan massacre = My Lai Massacre 2.0

america is stuck on stew pid.

GAME OVER AMERICA.

learn chinese!

[ttsgw]

01:16 PM on 03/24/2012

All this guy have to do is to refer to the stand your ground law, and he will become totally acquitted.

[tb1947]

09:06 PM on 03/23/2012

We're bringing this soldier to justice quickly and rightly so.

But what ever happened to Maj Nidal Hasan? the coward murderer of 13 ( 29 injured) of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood? Our military is too caught up in being politcally correct that we can't even call this guy a crazed islamist and get on with bringing him to justice! Bales served 4 tours and likely saw alot of his fellow soldiers killed. What is Hasan's excuse?

[Smoking and Starving]

08:37 AM on 03/24/2012

read the article. Hasan's trial details are all in there.

[Patriot28]

07:58 PM on 03/23/2012

They are quick to judge our soldiers who are trained to kill. There is a reason this soldier did this. We have terriosts still in prison from years ago who murdered people and are said to be
'temporarily insane' and are still alive, living a better life in prison than they ever had.

[Harold R Hunt Sr]

06:25 PM on 03/23/2012

America, Close your eyes for a min. Now picture this. Your son just join the army. he is sent over seas. He and two friends are walking down main street in area that is to be safe. Out of a house comes a woman dressed in their hooded dress. Bang one friend droppes bang the other friend droppes. your son run like hell. then your son is sent home. after six months he is sent back to that counrty. He loses part of a foot. he see five others killed by a child bomber or a women kills them. Then your son goes out on patrol in the night he hears gun shots all around him so he snaps breaks in a house and kills 11 people then goes to the next house and kills 6 more. then gun shots stop. there is no more shooting. did he kill the right people . he dosen't know. the shooting stopped. now open your eyes and think do you want your son charged with murder. This man is a hero in so many ways because he didn't ask to be in that place our counrty and the pres. of the USA sent him there. He did what he was train to do kill or be killed. maybe not by those 17people but it could have been them or the next 17. Then there would be dancing in the streets. give him a medal of honor and let ameria do the dancing.

[Smoking and Starving]

08:37 AM on 03/24/2012

that's not what happened, but thanks for the fairy tale.

[Berber Soula]

02:45 AM on 03/26/2012

give him a medal of honor and let ameria do the dancing. ameria? did you mean armenia?

[MACON MAN]

06:23 PM on 03/23/2012

Here we go again. I make a comment that the Ft Hood murder of American military by an American doctor safe and out of harms way is worse that a battle weary sargent going berserk. I do not condone the sargents actions. He should and is going to stand trial. But where is the level of compassion for those masacred at Ft Hood? I ask this question and you find it offensive and violation of guidlines? How is that?

[Timothy Medeiros]

06:16 PM on 03/23/2012

Wow talk about swift justice. (For Some).

[acavet]

06:08 PM on 03/23/2012

If the information we have been dished out is correct and this man did what they say he did then he should be punished. Unlike the enemy we are fighting we punish our own who commit wanton acts of violence.

What's really ironic is that the Afghans in an attempt to retaliate have now killed more of their own people than the Sergeant did.

You could give these people everything they ask for or want, they still would find justification to kill each other and those who don't agree with them.

Its unfortunate we just can isolate these people to their own country and let them kill each other, that's what they have been doing for hundreds of years.

This is not a place we need to be or should even care about. Get our guys out!

[blunderdrog]

05:47 PM on 03/23/2012

Not only the Army but the Defense Department, Congress and President Obama should be put on trial. What this soldier and thousands of others have been forced to do by serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan is inhumane, pure and simple. I don't care what kind of training you get, we are human beings, not dogs. There are certain basic human values we are all raised with (hopefully) and what our soldiers face on a daily basis in the type of war which has been fought for the last 10 years does not fit in with those values. Millions of Americans have been warning our government and their fellow citizens that things like this were going to happen given the unrealistic demands placed on our fighting men and women. This one soldier might have pulled the trigger on the weapon that killed all these Afghanis but all of his superiors up to the president pulled his trigger after turning him into a robotic image of his former self. As for what Afghanistan thinks...why do we care? We have been fighting for a freedom they can't begin to understand to maintain a central government they have no desire to respect. As a nation we have made a mistake and this soldier does not deserve to be punished for it.

[stlbrz]

04:45 PM on 03/23/2012

Let me guess, the victims were all wearing hoodies and there is a stand your ground law just like Florida's in Afghanistan. This means he should be protected right?

[dugandean]

04:38 PM on 03/23/2012

There are some very strange things in this case: First, why did he target two families in particular? When there was shooting in the nearby villages, why didn't someone investigate? Finally, why was he deployed in the first place? A soldier with an alcohol problem, who had been in trouble before, should have been discharged.

[Carptcapt]

04:14 PM on 03/23/2012

Wonder why the rush to convict an american soldier who killed muslims when we cant get a muslim who killed american soldiers here in america to trial.

[calluna]

04:42 PM on 03/23/2012

Please. People were calling for Hasan to be tried and executed while he was still in intensive care.

[Carptcapt]

05:15 PM on 03/23/2012

Who cares what shape he is in, what he did he should be put to death. What about the acussed soldier look what hes been thru for people like us

[mgrtec1]

05:47 PM on 03/23/2012

So why hasn't he been tried yet???

[Ken Griffey Junior Jr]

06:06 PM on 03/23/2012

Hasan's trial is in June. It literally took me less than eight seconds to Google that. But, hey, it's more fun to jump to conclusions, right?

[Carptcapt]

08:10 PM on 03/23/2012

But how long has it been was the question, and it was American soldiers

[salgal877]

04:17 PM on 03/23/2012

I AGREE TOTALLY !!!

[stlbrz]

04:46 PM on 03/23/2012

You are totally absurd.

[Marliss]

04:17 PM on 03/23/2012

Do you live in North Idaho?