Personal Injury Solicitor Lawyers: Lawyer meets with US soldier accused in Afghan killings

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(CNN) -- The attorney representing an Army soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians met his client for the first time on Monday, a prison spokeswoman said.

Rebecca Steed, spokeswoman for the U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the suspect is being held, confirmed the meeting but declined to provide details.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales stands accused of a shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, allegations that have strained already tense U.S.-Afghan relations and intensified a debate about whether to pull American troops ahead of their 2014 withdrawal. The military is preparing charges.

Bales is being represented by John Henry Browne, a Seattle lawyer known for picking up the hardest of hard-core cases. Calls to Browne for comment after his Monday meeting were not immediately returned.

Karilyn Bales, the suspect's wife, released a statement Monday calling the rampage a "terrible and heartbreaking tragedy" and asking for some privacy.

"Our family has little information beyond what we read and see in the media. What has been reported is completely out of character of the man I know and admire. Please respect me when I say I cannot shed any light on what happened that night, so please do not ask," she said. "Please allow us some peace and time as we try to make sense of something that makes no sense at all."

After the March 11 shootings in two neighboring villages just outside a U.S. outpost in the Panjwai district, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded troops withdraw from villages and return to their bases. He said relations between the two countries were "at the end of their rope."

If U.S. troops are not allowed to return to the villages and resume their mission, "the United States mission is changed," retired Maj. Gen. James A. "Spider" Marks, a former commander of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, told CNN on Sunday.

Karzai is pressing for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces by 2013, a year ahead of the agreed-upon plan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has made clear he intends to stick to the timetable set by NATO, though he is facing a growing demand inside and outside the United States to bring troops home early.

Afghans are demanding that the suspect in the shootings be returned to face trial in the country where the crimes allegedly occurred, even as villagers and lawmakers question the U.S. military's account of what happened.

Questions abound a week after slayings of Afghan civilians

U.S. officials have said that Bales left his outpost and single-handedly carried out the killings in the villages that left nine children, three women and four men dead.

One villager, Ali Ahmed, told CNN multiple attackers had come into a home before dawn, asked his uncle where the Taliban were and shot him dead. But another villager, a boy, claimed it was just one person.

Taliban demands Afghan trial for alleged shooter

Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States insisted Sunday that his nation trusts the U.S. investigation into the rampage. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has promised Karzai a full investigation and said the United States will bring the shooter to justice.

"You couldn't imagine a more difficult case, I don't think," Browne, Bales' civilian attorney, told reporters shortly after arriving Sunday at the Kansas City, Missouri, airport.

"This case has political ramifications. It has legal ramifications. It has social ramifications."

The trial will be held in the United States, though the location has not been decided, a U.S. Forces Afghanistan legal expert told reporters Sunday. "We will develop charges hopefully within the next week," said the expert, who would not speculate on what they might be.

Discussions are under way for the United States to compensate relatives of the victims, the expert added.

The government of Afghanistan will not be present in the court, the expert said in response to a question.

But some Afghanis might be taken to the United States for Bales' trial, the expert added. "If he is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be brought over," the expert said. "But it's very important for me to emphasize that we are very early in this process and we want to make sure that we do not make any speculations, which could undermine the United States' ability to bring justice here."

Defense lawyer in Afghanistan massacre known for hard-core cases

Accounts from the military, Bales' family, friends and neighbors paint a portrait of a man who bore scars from wounds he received during previous combat tours to Iraq but remained passionately committed to service to his country, and deployed to Afghanistan in January.

Bales suffered a traumatic brain injury during a roadside bomb explosion and lost part of his foot in separate tours in Iraq, his attorney has said.

In between deployments, he settled down with his wife and their two young children near Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Washington.

Family friends who knew Bales growing up in the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood, Ohio, couldn't reconcile the allegations against the man they described as "quiet" and "very nice."

But the accounts also show a man facing enormous financial pressure, being forced to put his Lake Tapps home on the market last week while another property was foreclosed.

The family owned a townhouse in a modest, middle-class neighborhood in Auburn, Washington, about 30 minutes from the base, before purchasing a house in 2006 for $280,000 near Lake Tapps, about eight miles away, according to realty records.

Tim Burgess, whose Auburn townhouse shared a wall with that of the Bales family, described his former neighbor as "a really good guy (who) just wanted to serve."

"I know he just wanted to go back and serve overseas, that was his goal," Burgess recalled from their conversations, noting the two hadn't spoken in about five years.

Robert Baggett, president of the Riverpark Homeowners Association, said after the Bales family moved out there were occasional renters.

But several years ago, their townhouse was foreclosed upon, according to Baggett and Burgess. The Baleses also didn't pay homeowners association fees for "at least three or four years," Baggett said.

"We don't know what happened," Baggett said of the Baleses and their Auburn property, which Sunday had a notice posted on its door that read "Do Not Occupy."

CNN's Sara Sidner in Kabul, Afghanistan, Paul Vercammen in Auburn, Washington, and Bill Kirkos contributed to this report.

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updated 8:35 AM EDT, Mon March 19, 2012

Video: Afghan President Hamid Karzai cast doubt on the U.S. account of a shooting rampage after meeting with the families of victims.updated 7:47 PM EDT, Mon March 19, 2012

A retired U.S. general suggested the fallout from the massacre could lead to American troops' beginning to return home within weeks.updated 8:22 PM EDT, Mon March 19, 2012

Shocked friends of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales say he was passionately committed to serving his country and cared deeply for others.updated 9:48 PM EDT, Sun March 18, 2012

Video: Witnesses offer accounts of the massacre in Kandahar; Taliban tells why it suspended peace talks. Sara Sidner reports.updated 11:00 AM EDT, Mon March 19, 2012

Video: CNN's Dan Simon visits the former U.S. home of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales to learn more about the accused shooter.updated 8:44 PM EDT, Fri March 16, 2012

The attorney representing Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is a pugnacious trial lawyer who doesn't shy from the hardest cases.updated 11:58 PM EDT, Thu March 15, 2012

A lack of information heightens speculation about the suspect and his mental condition. What soldier could commit such a heinous act?updated 1:38 PM EDT, Thu March 15, 2012

Video: Afghan President Hamid Karzai urges U.S. troops to pull out of Afghan outposts in the wake of the massacre.updated 4:17 PM EDT, Thu March 15, 2012

The alleged murder of 16 Afghan civilians could spur retaliatory violence in the United States, The FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned.

Personal Injury Solicitor Lawyers

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Lawyer meets with US soldier accused in Afghan killings - CNN

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