Details of American soldier's Afghan village rampage bared
Source: Agencies |
November 7, 2012, Wednesday
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THE caped figure on the surveillance video came running out of the darkness to the edge of a remote Army outpost in southern Afghanistan. Blood was smeared on his face, prosecutors said, and soaked into his clothes.
Less than 2 meters away, 16 Afghans, including nine children, were dead, some of their bodies on fire in two villages.
As fellow soldiers stopped him at the base's gate, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales was incredulous, prosecutors said. Then, as he was taken into custody, Bales said, "I thought I was doing the right thing."
The details, from a prosecutor as well as Bales' comrades, emerged on Monday as a preliminary hearing in his case opened, offering the clearest picture yet of one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The March 11 attack prompted the United States to halt combat operations for days in the face of protests, and it was a month before military investigators could reach the crime scenes.
The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse, said that after Bales attacked one village near his post at Camp Belambay, he returned, woke up a colleague to report what he had done, and warned that he was headed back out to attack another village.
"I never got out of bed, sir," the colleague, Sergeant Jason McLaughlin, testified. "I thought it was ridiculously out of the realm of normal possibility, sir."
Bales, 39, faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, could last up to two weeks and will help determine whether the case goes to a court martial.
The defense did not give an opening statement. Bales has not entered a plea. His attorneys say Bales has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury during a prior deployment to Iraq.
The father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, wore green fatigues and sat beside one of his civilian lawyers as an investigating officer read the charges against him and informed him of his rights. When asked if he understood them, Bales said, "Sir, yes, sir."
Bales spent the March night before the raids at Camp Belambay, watching "Man On Fire," a fictional account of a former CIA operative on a revenge spree, with other soldiers, Morse said.
He seemed normal as they shared whiskey, discussed Bales' anxiety over whether he'd get a promotion and talked about another soldier who lost his leg a week earlier in a roadside bomb attack, Corporal David Godwin testified.
Bales is accused of slipping away from the remote outpost with an M4 rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher to attack the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, in a dangerous district.
Prosecutors played for the first time the video captured by a surveillance blimp that showed the caped figure running toward the base, then stopping and dropping his weapons as he was confronted. There was no audio.
Less than 2 meters away, 16 Afghans, including nine children, were dead, some of their bodies on fire in two villages.
As fellow soldiers stopped him at the base's gate, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales was incredulous, prosecutors said. Then, as he was taken into custody, Bales said, "I thought I was doing the right thing."
The details, from a prosecutor as well as Bales' comrades, emerged on Monday as a preliminary hearing in his case opened, offering the clearest picture yet of one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The March 11 attack prompted the United States to halt combat operations for days in the face of protests, and it was a month before military investigators could reach the crime scenes.
The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse, said that after Bales attacked one village near his post at Camp Belambay, he returned, woke up a colleague to report what he had done, and warned that he was headed back out to attack another village.
"I never got out of bed, sir," the colleague, Sergeant Jason McLaughlin, testified. "I thought it was ridiculously out of the realm of normal possibility, sir."
Bales, 39, faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, could last up to two weeks and will help determine whether the case goes to a court martial.
The defense did not give an opening statement. Bales has not entered a plea. His attorneys say Bales has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury during a prior deployment to Iraq.
The father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, wore green fatigues and sat beside one of his civilian lawyers as an investigating officer read the charges against him and informed him of his rights. When asked if he understood them, Bales said, "Sir, yes, sir."
Bales spent the March night before the raids at Camp Belambay, watching "Man On Fire," a fictional account of a former CIA operative on a revenge spree, with other soldiers, Morse said.
He seemed normal as they shared whiskey, discussed Bales' anxiety over whether he'd get a promotion and talked about another soldier who lost his leg a week earlier in a roadside bomb attack, Corporal David Godwin testified.
Bales is accused of slipping away from the remote outpost with an M4 rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher to attack the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, in a dangerous district.
Prosecutors played for the first time the video captured by a surveillance blimp that showed the caped figure running toward the base, then stopping and dropping his weapons as he was confronted. There was no audio.
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