Soldier formally charged with 17 counts of murder

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military formally charged Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales on Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder in connection with a shooting spree in an Afghan village that left women and children dead and injured.

Bales was also charged with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault, the U.S. military said in an announcement.

 
Bales is accused of slipping off a combat outpost in southern Afghanistan and slaughtering villagers as they slept. The shootings occurred March 11 in the Panjwai district in Kandahar province.He could face the death penalty if convicted, though the military has not executed anyone since the early 1960s.The charges are an initial step in the military's legal system. Next, Bales will face an Article 32 hearing, which is roughly equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding. If the charges hold up in that proceeding, he would face a court-martial.The court-martial would be presided over by a military judge. The defendant can choose to empanel a jury of military members or a have the judge issue a finding at trial.The case is likely to be followed closely in Afghanistan.The massacre followed the accidental burnings of Qurans at a U.S. base in Afghanistan, which touched off waves of deadly rioting.No one has suggested a motive for the shootings, but the massacre has highlighted the issues of combat stress and frequent deployments.Bales, 38, joined the Army on Nov. 8, 2001, two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Friends say he was driven by patriotism, but Bales' financial businesses had gone bust, and regulators were investigating him for allegedly bilking an Ohio couple of their retirement savings.He deployed three times to Iraq before his Afghanistan deployment.During his second deployment, he fought in Najaf to recover a downed helicopter. His platoon leader praised him, and in a newspaper article, Bales recalled it as one of his proudest moments.He arrived in Afghanistan in December. His unit was responsible for providing security at a small outpost manned by special operations forces.Two days before the killings, one of Bales' fellow soldiers lost a leg after stepping on a buried mine, said John Henry Browne, Bales' civilian attorney.

Bales suffered a minor head injury in 2010 as a passenger in a Humvee that flipped, Browne said. "I'm not putting the war on trial, but the war is on trial," Browne said.