Life Without Parole for G.I. Who Killed 16 Afghan Civilians
By JACK HEALY
A jury made its decision on Friday in the case of Staff Sgt. Robert
Bales following three days of wrenching testimony that recounted one of
the worst atrocities of the United States’ war in Afghanistan.
By JACK HEALY
Published: August 23, 2013
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes, will spend the rest of his life in prison, a military jury decided on Friday.
The jury’s decision came after three days of wrenching testimony
that painted a moment-by-moment, bullet-by-bullet account of one of the
worst atrocities of the United States’ long war in Afghanistan.
The six-member military jury considering his fate had two options:
sentence him to life in prison with no possibility of parole, or allow
him a chance at freedom after about 20 years behind bars. His guilty plea in June removed the death penalty from the table.
In pressing for mercy, Sergeant Bales’ defense team said he had been a
good soldier, a loving father and a stand-up friend before snapping
after four combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But prosecutors
said he was a man frustrated with his career and family, easy to anger,
whose rage erupted at the end of his M-4 rifle.
“He liked murder,” the prosecutor, Lt. Col. Jay Morse, said in closing
arguments on Friday. “He liked the power it gave him.”
The killings took place in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar Province,
in two villages that were little more than an assortment of mud-walled
homes, with no electricity or running water, where residents cultivated
wheat and other grains. On March 11, 2012, after a night of drinking
alcohol and watching movies with other soldiers, Sergeant Bales slipped
away from his combat outpost and set off toward the villages.
What happened next was brought into vivid detail by nine Afghan men and
boys who had been wounded during the killings and took the witness stand
in a military courtroom this week.
Wearing traditional Afghan shalwar kameez and turbans as they faced a
wall of crew cuts and crisp blue military dress uniforms, the Afghans
spoke in Pashto of this unknown American who burst into their lives like
a camouflaged grim reaper. They recalled how he hit and kicked members
of their family, gunned down defenseless old men, mothers and children,
and set their bodies on fire.
Several American service members also testified to the massacre’s
outward ripples, describing how a wounded 7-year-old girl named Zardana
had to be taught to walk and use the bathroom again, how Afghans seethed
with outrage in the Panjwai district, and how the American military had
to suspend operations in the area after the killings.
On Friday, prosecutors described Sergeant Bales as a “methodical killer,” uncaring and unrepentant.
In a closing argument illuminated by graphic videos and photos of the
dead and wounded, Colonel Morse said Sergeant Bales had shown no mercy
to the Afghan families, and deserved none from his military peers.
“Sergeant Bales not only had no remorse, but knew everything he was
doing,” Colonel Morse said. “He decides to take out his aggression on
the weak and the defenseless.”
COPY http://www.nytimes.com
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