NOVANEWS
(Peter Millett/ Associated Press ) – In this detail from a courtroom sketch, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, stands before military judge Col. Jeffery Nance, right, Wednesday, June 5, 2013, during a plea hearing in a military courtroom at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Bales pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder, stemming from a pre-dawn attack on two villages in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan in March, 2012.
By Associated Press
Many of his victims were women and children who were asleep in their villages when Staff Sgt. Robert Bales approached, armed with a 9 mm pistol and an M-4 rifle equipped with a grenade launcher.
“Sir, as far as why — I’ve asked that question a million times since then. There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did,” he said.
For each charge, Col. Jeffery Nance asked him a series of questions to assess the validity of his plea. Did he believe he had legal justification to kill the victims? Was he acting in self-defense? Did anyone force or coerce him to commit the murders?
For each, Bales answered, “No, sir.”
In a clear, steady voice, Bales also read from a statement.
“This act was without legal justification, sir,” the 39-year-old infantryman said.
Bales’ plea ensures that he will avoid the death penalty for the middle-of-the night slayings that so inflamed tensions with the people of Afghanistan that the American military suspended combat operations there. It was three weeks before Army investigators could reach the crime scene.
In Afghanistan Thursday, family members of victims said they were outraged that Bales will not face the death penalty.
“I am shocked to see that a person who killed 16 and wounded six has been given such leniency,” said Baraan Noorzia, whose brother was killed. “We will raise our voices from here to our president, to all human right organizations, and the American people that there should be no mercy for a person who carried out such a massacre.”
A man who lost his wife and three other family members said the outcome isn’t acceptable.
“If there is no death penalty over there for him, then he should be brought to Afghanistan because he is guilty and he did this crime,” said Sayed Jan. “From day one we have been saying that he should have been put on trial here.”
Prosecutors say Bales left on March 11, 2012, from his base in Kandahar Province. He attacked a village of mud-walled compounds called Alkozai, then returned and woke up a fellow soldier to tell him about it.
The soldier didn’t believe Bales and went back to sleep. Bales then left to attack a second village known as Najiban.
A jury will decide in August whether the soldier is sentenced to life with or without the possibility of parole. He would serve his prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, the military prison in Kansas. If he is sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, he’d be eligible in 10 years, but there’s no guarantee he’d receive it.
