TACOMA, Wash., (Reuters) – A U.S. Army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year pleaded guilty yesterday to premeditated murder and other charges under a deal with military prosecutors to avoid the death penalty.
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to roaming off his Army post in the Afghan province of Kandahar last March to gun down and set fire to unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, in attacks on their family compounds.
“As far as why, I’ve asked that question a million times since then,” Bales said, in a calm, steady voice, when asked by the judge for an explanation. “There is not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things that I did.”
The slayings marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and further strained U.S.-Afghan relations after more than a decade of conflict in that country.
Bales, 39, now faces a maximum punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole. A military jury will decide his sentence after further proceedings set to begin Aug. 19.
Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for Bales’ guilty plea to the murder charges he faced.
The presiding judge, Army Colonel Jeffery Nance, accepted the agreement at the end of a lengthy hearing during which Bales was required to recount the events in question and to convince the judge he understood his plea and the consequences of his acts.
Wearing a military dress uniform, Bales stood beside his lawyer, Emma Scanlan, as she entered guilty pleas on his behalf to 16 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder and seven counts of assault, as well as to alcohol and drug charges.
Reading through the list of charges himself, one at a time, later in the hearing, Bales acknowledged that he committed 10 of the slayings by shooting and burning his victims and that he killed six others by gunshot only.
“I then did kill her by shooting her with a firearm and burning her. This act was without legal justification,” he said during a matter-of-fact recitation of his crimes, delivered with no visible sign of emotion.
INTENT TO KILL
Asked by Nance if he had acted out of self-defense, or under orders, or whether he had any other legal justification to kill the 16 villagers, Bales replied, “No, sir.”
“Could you have avoided killing them if you wanted to?” the judge asked.
