The lawyer for US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the soldier who stands accused of massacring 16 Afghan citizens on March 11, 2012, claims there is no evidence linking his client to the killings in a new interview with the Guardian. John Henry Browne says his client has “some memories of what occurred that evening, before the supposed incident, and he has some memories of what happened after the alleged incident,” but has no recollection of the time in-between.
A senior U.S. official says the soldier accused in the killings is Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into an incident that has roiled relations with Afghanistan.
Bales, who is 38, is a husband and father of two young children and a veteran who was in the midst of his fourth tour in a war zone. But because of a tightly controlled flow of information, many of the details are incomplete and difficult to verify.
It took a fairly long time — nearly a full week — for his name to surface. Part of this was that the only sources talking, the U.S. military and the suspect’s lawyer, John Henry Browne (who spoke about the case earlier this morning), each had vested interests in keeping his identity hidden.
There will be efforts to paint him as a rogue soldier rather than focusing on how we treat GIs in general or whether we should be over there to begin with.Attorney John Henry Browne • Discussing his client, the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians last week. Browne, who spoke on The Today Show this morning, said the case against his client was “more political than legal” and that the defense would likely focus on the client having post-traumatic stress disorder.
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