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Girl, 7, tells of hiding behind dad in massacre
Source: Agencies |
November 12, 2012, Monday
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LITTLE Robina took her seat wearing a deep-red head covering and a nervous smile, ready to tell her story. She giggled as any seven-year-old in the spotlight might.
But when the questions began, what she recalled seemed impossibly dark: how she hid behind her father when the gunman came to their village that night, how the stranger fired, and how her father died, cursing in pain and anger.
"I was standing behind my father," she testified by video feed from Afghanistan on Saturday night during a hearing for the soldier accused of killing 16 civilians, including nine children, in Kandahar Province. "He shot my father."
One of the bullets struck her in the leg, but she didn't realize it right away.
Her testimony came on the second overnight session of the preliminary hearing for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who prosecutors say slipped away from his base to attack two villages. The slayings drew such angry protests that the US temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.
Harrowing tales
The stories recounted by the villagers have been harrowing. They described torched bodies, a son finding his wounded father, and boys cowering behind a curtain while others screamed "We are children! We are children!"
Bales sat quietly, betraying no reaction to what he heard.
Robina's friend, Zardana, now eight, also testified, but only briefly to describe what the shooter was wearing.
Zardana suffered a gunshot wound to the top of her head, and when she arrived at a nearby military base, the doctors focused on treating the other injured victims first. They figured she wouldn't survive.
After two months at a military hospital in Afghanistan and three more at a Navy hospital in San Diego, she can walk and talk again.
Before she testified, Zardana sat at the witness table sipping from a pink juice box through a pink straw. A loose head covering and a barrette held her dark brown hair out of her face.
The hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord will determine if Bales, 39, will face a court-martial in the deaths. He could face the death penalty if he is convicted.
The Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, has not entered a plea and was not expected to testify.
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