The US Army staff sergeant charged with killing 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
The deal will require him to recount the horrific attack for the first time, his lawyer said.
Robert Bales was “crazed” and “broken” when he slipped away from his outpost in Kandahar province in March last year and attacked two villages, lawyer John Henry Browne said. But his client’s mental state did not rise to the level of a legal insanity defence, Mr Browne added.
Relatives of the victims are outraged that he might escape the death penalty. “For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers,” said Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed. Mr Browne previously indicated the soldier remembered little about the massacre. But as further details emerged, Bales began to remember what he did, the lawyer said, and he will admit to “very specific facts” about the shootings.
Mr Browne said his client, who had been on his fourth combat deployment, was suffering from a traumatic brain injury.
He continued to blame the army for sending him back to war. “He’s broken, and we broke him,” the lawyer said.
A plea hearing is set for June 5.
