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| Guilty Plea By Sergeant In Killing Of Civilians | |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales of the Army pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing 16 Afghan civilians last year, most of them women and children, in the deadliest war crime attributed to a single American soldier in the decade of war that has followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales of the Army pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing 16 Afghan civilians last year, most of them women and children, in the deadliest war crime attributed to a single American soldier in the decade of war that has followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. |
| The plea, if accepted by the military court, would remove the threat of the death penalty from his case. And the hearing, which began just after 9 a.m. near Seattle, in a windowless military courtroom here on the base, was somber. Sergeant Bales, wearing a blue Army service uniform, rose from his seat at the defense table, raised his right hand and was sworn under oath. | The plea, if accepted by the military court, would remove the threat of the death penalty from his case. And the hearing, which began just after 9 a.m. near Seattle, in a windowless military courtroom here on the base, was somber. Sergeant Bales, wearing a blue Army service uniform, rose from his seat at the defense table, raised his right hand and was sworn under oath. |
| Under questioning by the presiding judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, Sergeant Bales — answering crisply using two or four words, “Yes, sir,” or “Yes, I do sir,” — said he understood that a guilty plea was irrevocable. One of his defense lawyers, Emma Scanlan, speaking on Sergeant Bales’s behalf, said that the guilty plea was to all the major charges, including premeditated murder, but that he would plead not guilty to a minor charge of impeding the investigation against him. | Under questioning by the presiding judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, Sergeant Bales — answering crisply using two or four words, “Yes, sir,” or “Yes, I do sir,” — said he understood that a guilty plea was irrevocable. One of his defense lawyers, Emma Scanlan, speaking on Sergeant Bales’s behalf, said that the guilty plea was to all the major charges, including premeditated murder, but that he would plead not guilty to a minor charge of impeding the investigation against him. |
| As the plea hearing continued, Colonel Nance worked through the charges one by one, eliciting responses from Sergeant Bales that sounded mostly formulaic and rote. | As the plea hearing continued, Colonel Nance worked through the charges one by one, eliciting responses from Sergeant Bales that sounded mostly formulaic and rote. |
| “What was your reason for killing them?” Colonel Nance finally asked. | “What was your reason for killing them?” Colonel Nance finally asked. |
| Sergeant Bales paused, then said he had asked himself the same question “a million times.” | Sergeant Bales paused, then said he had asked himself the same question “a million times.” |
| “There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did,” he said. | “There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did,” he said. |
| Sergeant Bales, 39, who was on his fourth combat deployment in 10 years — three tours in Iraq, and the final one in Afghanistan — at the time of the attack in March 2012, never took the witness stand in a pretrial hearing November. | Sergeant Bales, 39, who was on his fourth combat deployment in 10 years — three tours in Iraq, and the final one in Afghanistan — at the time of the attack in March 2012, never took the witness stand in a pretrial hearing November. |
| The attacks took place in two villages in a poor rural region the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province. | The attacks took place in two villages in a poor rural region the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province. |
| Villagers testified in a court hearing that a figure, cloaked in darkness with blindingly bright lights on his weapon, burst into their homes early on the morning of March 11, 2012, shooting, stabbing and burning bodies. Fellow soldiers told the court in the Article 32 hearing — the military’s version of a grand jury hearing — that they had been drinking together earlier that night, against regulations, and that Sergeant Bales had later walked back into the camp, wearing a cape, his clothes spotted with blood. | Villagers testified in a court hearing that a figure, cloaked in darkness with blindingly bright lights on his weapon, burst into their homes early on the morning of March 11, 2012, shooting, stabbing and burning bodies. Fellow soldiers told the court in the Article 32 hearing — the military’s version of a grand jury hearing — that they had been drinking together earlier that night, against regulations, and that Sergeant Bales had later walked back into the camp, wearing a cape, his clothes spotted with blood. |