JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – The U.S. military has been criticized for its spotty record on convicting troops of killing civilians, but a hearing against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales involving a massacre in Afghanistan has shown that it isn’t like most other cases.
Government prosecutors have built a strong eyewitness case against the veteran soldier, with troops recounting how they saw Bales return to the base covered in blood. And in unusual testimony in a military court, Afghan civilians questioned via a video link described the horror of seeing 16 people killed, mostly children, in their villages.
Law experts say the case could test whether the military, aided by technology, is able to embark on a new era of accountability.
Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The preliminary hearing, which began Nov. 5 and is scheduled to end with closing arguments today, will determine whether he faces a court-martial. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
The U.S. military system’s record has shown it is slow to convict service members of alleged war crimes.
A range of factors make prosecuting troops for civilian deaths in foreign lands difficult, including gathering eyewitness testimony and collecting evidence at a crime scene in the midst of a war.
At Bales’ preliminary hearing, the prosecution accommodated the Afghan witnesses by providing the video link and holding the sessions at night. The military said it intends to fly the witnesses from Afghanistan to Joint Base Lewis-McChord if there is a court-martial.
“I think it shows they’re going to prosecute this case no matter what it takes,” said Greg Rinckey, a former Army prosecutor from 1999 to 2004 who is now in private practice. “This was an atrocity. This is not the fog of war. It’s not like we were calling in artillery and an artillery shell landed in a village.”
Prosecutors say Bales, 39, slipped away from remote Camp Belambay to attack two villages early on March 11, killing 16 civilians, including nine children. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan.
Through a video monitor in a military courtroom near Seattle, Bales saw young Afghan girls smile beneath bright head coverings before they described the bloodbath he’s accused of committing. He saw boys fidget as they remembered how they hid behind curtains when a gunman killed people in their village and one other.
And he saw dignified, thick-bearded men who spoke of unspeakable carnage – the piled, burned bodies of children and parents alike.
From the other side of that video link, in Afghanistan, one of the men saw something else – signs that justice will be done.
“I saw the person who killed my brother sitting there, head down with guilt,” Haji Mullah Baraan said.
