Accused Afghan shooter's lawyer wants military counsel fired

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The civilian attorney representing the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan villagers wants to replace the military lawyer assigned to the case after disagreements over how to handle his defense.

"You are fired, sorry, but we have much more experience than you," Seattle-based John Henry Browne, the outspoken lawyer who has been the public face of the defense of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said in an email to military lawyer Major Thomas Hurley.

The Army assigns defense counsel such as Hurley to soldiers facing court martial but defendants also have the right to hire additional civilian counsel, in this case Browne. Any change in military counsel would have to be approved by the Army.

Browne's associate Emma Scanlan confirmed the decision, saying she and her boss looked forward to working with another lawyer. "We wish Major Hurley the best in his future endeavors," she said by email. Hurley declined to comment.

Browne's team wants to work with a military attorney with death penalty case experience, the email to Hurley from Browne, part of a chain obtained by Reuters, showed. Hurley has more than 60 military cases under his belt, with three involving homicide charges, but none were capital cases.

The decision comes after friction between the civilian and military lawyers over Browne's aggressive media strategy, and each side has accused the other of not being team players.

"Major Hurley is not a team player and has no experience in murder cases, we do," Browne wrote in a separate email to Reuters. "We have gotten 17 not guilty verdicts in murder cases and have gotten life verdicts in all our death penalty cases."

For his part, Hurley said Browne was the one who was not playing his role on the team.

Last week, Browne unleashed a unilateral public attack on the way U.S. prosecutors are handling the investigation into the shooting and accused U.S. authorities of blocking access to potential witnesses.

There was also disagreement over the decision to put Bales' wife on the Today show, where she said her husband showed no signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, potentially damaging Bales' most likely defense.

Karilyn Bales also said her husband was ready to be deployed to Afghanistan, in the interview with Today's Matt Lauer, parts of which were broadcast on March 25 and 26 on NBC.

Bales said she was not sure what post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms might be, but her husband did not have nightmares, trouble concentrating or display any erratic behavior shifts.

Such interviews "limit our options at trial or expose important witnesses to effective cross-examination that they would otherwise not have to face," Hurley said in the email chain obtained by Reuters.

Browne told Reuters Karilyn's ignorance of the signs of PTSD helped the defense, showing the extent to which soldiers try to keep the "hell of war" away from their families.

Bales, 38, has been formally charged with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11.

The incident further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war. He is awaiting mental evaluation at a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Bales, whose family hired Browne's team, has the right to request new military counsel under the court martial system, so any request to replace Hurley will have to be confirmed by the accused soldier and approved by the Army.

(Reporting By Peter Henderson and Bill Rigby; editing by Todd Eastham)

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US soldier's lawyer slams Afghan killings 'blackout'

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The lawyer representing a US soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers condemned what he called an "information blackout" that prevents him from preparing his defense case.

Attorney John Henry Browne on Friday said his team had been blocked from interviewing witnesses and injured civilians in southern Afghanistan following the alleged massacre earlier this month.

"We were expecting a lot more cooperation. The prosecutors in this case promised us a lot of cooperation which we're just not getting," he told reporters in Seattle.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he added in a statement.

His client Sergeant Robert Bales, 38, is said to have walked out of his base in the southern province of Kandahar in the early hours of March 11 and mounted a massacre in two nearby villages, with many of his victims women and children.

Browne met his client earlier this month at the Fort Leavenworth military base in Kansas, where Bales is detained charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, as well as six counts of assault and attempted murder.

But his team has made little progress on the ground in Afghanistan. "When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital, we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," it said.

The next day, prosecutors interviewed the injured civilians, but Browne's office found out shortly afterward that "the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them.

"In addition, we are being denied access to the injured civilians medical records that are in the possession of the government which makes it even more impossible for us to try to locate and interview these crucial witnesses," it said.

"The prosecution is withholding the entire investigative file from the defense team while the potential witnesses scatter into unknown and potentially inaccessible areas in Afghanistan."

Browne, who said his team had also not been shown an alleged video of Bales, conceded that under military trial rules, they do not have the right to shared "discovery" information until 30 days before a so-called Article 32 preliminary hearing.

"In this case, they actually promised us that if we sent people to Afghanistan... they would cooperate, and make witnesses available for us. And they've obviously violated that promise," he said.

He also warned that the defense -- which will have access to the results of a "sanity review" of Bales expected in the next two months and not made officially available to prosecutors -- could withhold cooperation.

"If they want cooperation from us they better start cooperating more," he told reporters.

Browne said earlier this week that post-traumatic stress disorder will almost certainly be part of his defense, adding that prosecutors will have trouble proving their case against Bales.

The killings have further strained the already difficult relationship between Kabul and Washington, at an all-time low after the burning of Korans by Americans, a spate of deadly anti-US protests and an earlier video showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban militants.

US military officials declined to respond directly to Browne's allegations. But army spokesman George Wright told AFP: "The US Army will continue to work with the Bales legal defense team in the months to come."

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Lawyer: Afghan suspect had depression after Iraq

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians suffered a traumatic incident during his second tour in Iraq that triggered "tremendous depression," his lawyer said Wednesday.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said he could not discuss the details of the matter because it remains classified. But he expects the issue to become a focal point in the case against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

"It caused him tremendous depression and anxiety," Browne said.

The lawyer previously said Bales experienced other major dangers in his deployments, including a serious foot injury and head trauma. In addition, a fellow soldier's leg had been blown off days before the Afghanistan massacre, he said.

Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and other crimes. He is being held at a U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

A defense team is now in Afghanistan to collect evidence and interview other U.S. soldiers who knew Bales.

"Everyone they've spoken to in the military has nothing but amazingly positive things to say about him," said Browne, who is not part of the team in Afghanistan.

Due to security concerns, Browne doesn't think the team will visit the villages where the killings occurred. The investigators are likely to stay in Afghanistan a few more weeks.

Browne questioned the U.S. government's case against Bales, noting there is no preserved crime scene to assess.

"It's going to be a difficult case for the prosecution to prove," Browne said. "There's no 'CSI' information. There's no DNA that I know of. There's no ballistics that I know of."

Bales has indicated that he had no recollection of prescription drugs he may have been taking before the shooting — something the attorney took as an indicator of larger memory problems.

The lawyer also said his client has a sketchy memory of the night of the shootings. In a separate interview with The Washington Post, Browne said Wednesday that Bales remembered the smell of gunfire and of human bodies but not much more.

Browne added his client reported suffering from nightmares, flashbacks of war scenes and persistent headaches after his multiple combat tours. Bales told his legal team that he has long woken up with night sweats and often replays memories of a grisly scene in Iraq that he and his infantry company witnessed several years ago, Browne said.

The lawyer stressed that Bales did not confess and seemed surprised when his weapon was taken away, the newspaper reported.

U.S. military officials said Bales was drinking on a southern Afghanistan base on March 11 before creeping away to two villages at night, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine were children.

Bales has had incidents involving alcohol and violence in the past.

In 2002, He was arrested for a drunken assault of a security guard at a Tacoma casino. That charge was dismissed after Bales completed 20 hours of anger management training.

In 2008, a couple accused an intoxicated Bales of grabbing a woman's hand and thrusting it toward his crotch before kicking and punching the woman's boyfriend, according to a police report. Prosecutors declined to pursue that case.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Baker can be reached at http://twitter.com/MikeBakerAP

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Lawyer says US blocks investigation of Afghan massacre - Reuters

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1 of 2. Attorney John Henry Browne (R), civil legal counsel to Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) based soldier Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the then-deployed U.S. Army soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians earlier this month, speaks in a press conference in his Seattle, Washington office March 30, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Anthony Bolante

By Bill Rigby

SEATTLE | Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:45pm EDT

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

"When prosecutors don't cooperate, it's because they are concerned about the strength of their case," said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre has not yet emerged. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I don't believe that's the case, but we don't know for sure at this point," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said his investigators had spoken to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan but had not managed to contact any witnesses.

DENIED ACCESS

"When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," Browne said in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians injured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them." That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, Browne said.

Prosecutors had not shared their investigative findings with his team, and would not share images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base which the Army says shows Bales returning to the camp after the alleged shooting, he said.

The next step in the case is for Bales - who is being held at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - to undergo a mental assessment by Army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine if he is fit to stand trial, known as a "sanity board" in the Army.

That could take several months, Browne said.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a preliminary hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing, to establish whether there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

Browne said it was too early to say whether post-traumatic stress disorder would feature in his defense against the charges. "I don't know whether it will at all," said Browne.

"First thing we have to find out is whether the government has a case. Until we're convinced the government has a case, we're not going to start speculating on what our defenses are going to be."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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Lawyer says U.S. blocks investigation of Afghan massacre

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

"When prosecutors don't cooperate, it's because they are concerned about the strength of their case," said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre has not yet emerged. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I don't believe that's the case, but we don't know for sure at this point," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said his investigators had spoken to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan but had not managed to contact any witnesses.

DENIED ACCESS

"When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," Browne said in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians injured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them." That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, Browne said.

Prosecutors had not shared their investigative findings with his team, and would not share images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base which the Army says shows Bales returning to the camp after the alleged shooting, he said.

The next step in the case is for Bales - who is being held at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - to undergo a mental assessment by Army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine if he is fit to stand trial, known as a "sanity board" in the Army.

That could take several months, Browne said.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a preliminary hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing, to establish whether there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

Browne said it was too early to say whether post-traumatic stress disorder would feature in his defense against the charges. "I don't know whether it will at all," said Browne.

"First thing we have to find out is whether the government has a case. Until we're convinced the government has a case, we're not going to start speculating on what our defenses are going to be."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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Lawyer says U.S. blocks investigation of Afghan massacre

SEATTLE (Reuters)-the defense of the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan citizens lawyer claims US authorities blocking its ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, Staff Sergeant Robert Balen's lawyer, said the American troops in Afghanistan have prevented his team interviewing wounded civilians in a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to spread, making it difficult to detect them.

"My stomach is the reason is that they don't have much of a case," said Browne at a press conference in his Office in downtown Seattle on Friday.

Bales last week was formally charged with the murder of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on 11 March, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a process, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne prepares his defense.

Browne said he has a team of researchers in Afghanistan now, but they are little cooperation of military prosecutors who receive the cost posted.

"We are faced with an almost complete information from the Government, that blackout a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre is not yet revealed. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I do not believe that that is the case, but we cannot say that for sure," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said that his researchers had spoken to American soldiers in Afghanistan, but had not can contact any witnesses.

"If we tried to treat wounded civilians in Kandahar hospital we were refused entry and told to coordinate with the prosecution team interview," said Browne in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed citizens injured. We discovered shortly after the interviews of the persecution of the wounded civilians that the citizens were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them. " That means that potential witnesses could prove unattainable, will scatter and Browne said.

Browne said it was too early to say whether his defence would rely on post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD or other psychiatric problems that Bale may have suffered as a defense against the charges.

The next step in the case of balen-which is held in a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas-undergo a mental assessment by army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine whether he fits passive process, known as a "mental health board ' in the army. That could take several months, said Browne.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a first hearing, known as an "article 32" hearing, to determine if there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Sim?o)

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Lawyer: Afghan suspect had depression after Iraq

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians suffered a traumatic incident during his second tour in Iraq that triggered "tremendous depression," his lawyer said Wednesday.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said he could not discuss the details of the matter because it remains classified. But he expects the issue to become a focal point in the case against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

"It caused him tremendous depression and anxiety," Browne said.

The lawyer previously said Bales experienced other major dangers in his deployments, including a serious foot injury and head trauma. In addition, a fellow soldier's leg had been blown off days before the Afghanistan massacre, he said.

Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and other crimes. He is being held at a U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

A defense team is now in Afghanistan to collect evidence and interview other U.S. soldiers who knew Bales.

"Everyone they've spoken to in the military has nothing but amazingly positive things to say about him," said Browne, who is not part of the team in Afghanistan.

Due to security concerns, Browne doesn't think the team will visit the villages where the killings occurred. The investigators are likely to stay in Afghanistan a few more weeks.

Browne questioned the U.S. government's case against Bales, noting there is no preserved crime scene to assess.

"It's going to be a difficult case for the prosecution to prove," Browne said. "There's no 'CSI' information. There's no DNA that I know of. There's no ballistics that I know of."

Bales has indicated that he had no recollection of prescription drugs he may have been taking before the shooting — something the attorney took as an indicator of larger memory problems.

The lawyer also said his client has a sketchy memory of the night of the shootings. In a separate interview with The Washington Post, Browne said Wednesday that Bales remembered the smell of gunfire and of human bodies but not much more.

Browne added his client reported suffering from nightmares, flashbacks of war scenes and persistent headaches after his multiple combat tours. Bales told his legal team that he has long woken up with night sweats and often replays memories of a grisly scene in Iraq that he and his infantry company witnessed several years ago, Browne said.

The lawyer stressed that Bales did not confess and seemed surprised when his weapon was taken away, the newspaper reported.

U.S. military officials said Bales was drinking on a southern Afghanistan base on March 11 before creeping away to two villages at night, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine were children.

Bales has had incidents involving alcohol and violence in the past.

In 2002, He was arrested for a drunken assault of a security guard at a Tacoma casino. That charge was dismissed after Bales completed 20 hours of anger management training.

In 2008, a couple accused an intoxicated Bales of grabbing a woman's hand and thrusting it toward his crotch before kicking and punching the woman's boyfriend, according to a police report. Prosecutors declined to pursue that case.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Baker can be reached at http://twitter.com/MikeBakerAP

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Lawyer says US blocks investigation of Afghan massacre - Reuters

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1 of 2. Attorney John Henry Browne (R), civil legal counsel to Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) based soldier Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the then-deployed U.S. Army soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians earlier this month, speaks in a press conference in his Seattle, Washington office March 30, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Anthony Bolante

By Bill Rigby

SEATTLE | Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:45pm EDT

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

"When prosecutors don't cooperate, it's because they are concerned about the strength of their case," said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre has not yet emerged. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I don't believe that's the case, but we don't know for sure at this point," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said his investigators had spoken to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan but had not managed to contact any witnesses.

DENIED ACCESS

"When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," Browne said in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians injured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them." That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, Browne said.

Prosecutors had not shared their investigative findings with his team, and would not share images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base which the Army says shows Bales returning to the camp after the alleged shooting, he said.

The next step in the case is for Bales - who is being held at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - to undergo a mental assessment by Army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine if he is fit to stand trial, known as a "sanity board" in the Army.

That could take several months, Browne said.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a preliminary hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing, to establish whether there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

Browne said it was too early to say whether post-traumatic stress disorder would feature in his defense against the charges. "I don't know whether it will at all," said Browne.

"First thing we have to find out is whether the government has a case. Until we're convinced the government has a case, we're not going to start speculating on what our defenses are going to be."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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Lawyer says US blocks investigation of Afghan massacre

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

"When prosecutors don't cooperate, it's because they are concerned about the strength of their case," said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre has not yet emerged. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I don't believe that's the case, but we don't know for sure at this point," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said his investigators had spoken to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan but had not managed to contact any witnesses.

DENIED ACCESS

"When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," Browne said in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians i njured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them." That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, Browne said.

Prosecutors had not shared their investigative findings with his team, and would not share images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base which the Army says shows Bales returning to the camp after the alleged shooting, he said.

The next step in the case is for Bales - who is being held at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - to undergo a mental assessment by Army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine if he is fit to stand trial, known as a "sanity board" in the Army.

That could take several months, Browne said.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a preliminary hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing, to establish whether there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

Browne said it was too early to say whether post-traumatic stress disorder would feature in his defense against the charges. "I don't know whether it will at all," said Browne.

"First thing we have to find out is whether the government has a case. Until we're convinced the government has a case, we're not going to start speculating on what our defenses are going to be."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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Lawyer cites PTSD to defend US soldier in Afghan killings

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The lawyer for a US soldier charged with killing 17 villagers in southern Afghanistan said Wednesday he will cite Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to defend the serviceman.

Attorney John Henry Browne added that prosecutors will have trouble proving their case against Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, whose alleged attack further strained already tense ties between Washington and Kabul.

Bales, 38, is said to have walked out of his base in the southern province of Kandahar in the early hours of March 11 and mounted a massacre in two nearby villages, with many of his victims women and children.

"When the experts are done with this case, there'll definitely be PTSD... I know a lot about PTSD and the symptoms and everything, and I'm convinced from my conversations that PTSD will be an issue," he told CNN.

The lawyer, who said he has met his client for 11 hours, downplayed reports that Bales had confessed, or even spoken about the shootings when he returned from the alleged attacks in the early hours.

"I don't know that I trust anything about him saying 'I shot people,' because I have not heard that from any source I trust," Browne told CNN in an interview.

Bales, who is being held at the Fort Leavenworth military base in Kansas, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, as well as six counts of assault and attempted murder in connection with the massacre.

Browne claimed there was a lack of evidence from the scene.

"It's not a traditional crime scene. There is no crime scene. The military has not even been back to the villages where this allegation stems from. They haven't been back there," Browne said.

"So there's no crime scene, there's no DNA, there's no fingerprints, there's no confession. It's -- you know, the Afghan people traditionally, I understand, and understandably, bury their dead very quickly.

"So it's going to be a tough case for the prosecutors," he added.

The killings have put further strain on the already difficult relationship between Kabul and Washington, after the burning of Korans by American soldiers in mid-February triggered deadly anti-US protests.

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Lawyer says U.S. blocks investigation of Afghan massacre

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

"When prosecutors don't cooperate, it's because they are concerned about the strength of their case," said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he said in a statement released earlier on Friday.

A reliable account of the events of the night of the massacre has not yet emerged. A recent report indicated Afghan villagers doubt Bales acted alone. Other reports suggest Bales left his base twice during the night.

"I don't believe that's the case, but we don't know for sure at this point," Browne said on Friday.

Browne said his investigators had spoken to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan but had not managed to contact any witnesses.

DENIED ACCESS

"When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," Browne said in the earlier statement.

"The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians i njured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them." That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, Browne said.

Prosecutors had not shared their investigative findings with his team, and would not share images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base which the Army says shows Bales returning to the camp after the alleged shooting, he said.

The next step in the case is for Bales - who is being held at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - to undergo a mental assessment by Army doctors independent of both the prosecution and defense, to determine if he is fit to stand trial, known as a "sanity board" in the Army.

That could take several months, Browne said.

After that has occurred, the military justice system requires a preliminary hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing, to establish whether there is a strong enough case to proceed to a court martial.

Browne said it was too early to say whether post-traumatic stress disorder would feature in his defense against the charges. "I don't know whether it will at all," said Browne.

"First thing we have to find out is whether the government has a case. Until we're convinced the government has a case, we're not going to start speculating on what our defenses are going to be."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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US soldier's lawyer slams Afghan killings 'blackout'

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The lawyer representing a US soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers condemned what he called an "information blackout" that prevents him from preparing his defense case.

Attorney John Henry Browne on Friday said his team had been blocked from interviewing witnesses and injured civilians in southern Afghanistan following the alleged massacre earlier this month.

"We were expecting a lot more cooperation. The prosecutors in this case promised us a lot of cooperation which we're just not getting," he told reporters in Seattle.

"We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client," he added in a statement.

His client Sergeant Robert Bales, 38, is said to have walked out of his base in the southern province of Kandahar in the early hours of March 11 and mounted a massacre in two nearby villages, with many of his victims women and children.

Browne met his client earlier this month at the Fort Leavenworth military base in Kansas, where Bales is detained charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, as well as six counts of assault and attempted murder.

But his team has made little progress on the ground in Afghanistan. "When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital, we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team," it said.

The next day, prosecutors interviewed the injured civilians, but Browne's office found out shortly afterward that "the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them.

"In addition, we are being denied access to the injured civilians medical records that are in the possession of the government which makes it even more impossible for us to try to locate and interview these crucial witnesses," it said.

"The prosecution is withholding the entire investigative file from the defense team while the potential witnesses scatter into unknown and potentially inaccessible areas in Afghanistan."

Browne, who said his team had also not been shown an alleged video of Bales, conceded that under military trial rules, they do not have the right to shared "discovery" information until 30 days before a so-called Article 32 preliminary hearing.

"In this case, they actually promised us that if we sent people to Afghanistan... they would cooperate, and make witnesses available for us. And they've obviously violated that promise," he said.

He also warned that the defense -- which will have access to the results of a "sanity review" of Bales expected in the next two months and not made officially available to prosecutors -- could withhold cooperation.

"If they want cooperation from us they better start cooperating more," he told reporters.

Browne said earlier this week that post-traumatic stress disorder will almost certainly be part of his defense, adding that prosecutors will have trouble proving their case against Bales.

The killings have further strained the already difficult relationship between Kabul and Washington, at an all-time low after the burning of Korans by Americans, a spate of deadly anti-US protests and an earlier video showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban militants.

US military officials declined to respond directly to Browne's allegations. But army spokesman George Wright told AFP: "The US Army will continue to work with the Bales legal defense team in the months to come."

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Lawyer John Henry Browne on Afghan killings suspect Robert Bales: Was ‘the last tour was too much for someone with a ...

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A defense lawyer for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales said Monday he expects his client to be charged in the murder of 16 Afghans on Thursday. Going into his first face-to-face meetings with Bales, Seattle attorney John Henry Browne said he expected military prosecutors to issue the most severe charges against his client, a 38-year-old career Army soldier and married father of two. And he suggested that the defense may try to argue that Bales should never have been sent to Afghanistan with a concussive brain injury in the first place.

"We know what they are going to say—it's something really bad," Browne told Bloomberg News' David Mildenberg in an interview Monday in Lansing, Kan., near the Fort Leavenworth base where Bales has been held since Friday. The accused staff sergeant is currently residing in a private cell in the military base's medium-security prison.

[Related: Staff Sgt. Robert Bales - what we know so far]

Reports that Bales' family had been suffering financial difficulties and other strains associated with his repeated absences due to three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan were not relevant, Browne said. He also disputed reported accounts from unnamed military officials that alcohol and marital strains may have been a factor leading up to Bales' alleged March 11 house-to-house shooting rampage, which left nine children dead.

"Everyone has had issues in their lives," Browne told Bloomberg. "Some people do six or seven tours, but the question is whether the last tour was too much for someone with a concussive brain injury."

Daniel Conway, a military lawyer who represented another U.S. soldier charged in 2010 with killing Afghan civilians and also from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, told Yahoo News Monday that a military jury is not likely to be sympathetic to a defense that argues Bales suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was sent on too many deployments.

"Good luck trying to convince a military jury with a PTSD defense," Conway told Yahoo News in a telephone interview Monday. "A lot of them have multiple family stresses. It will be difficult to convince them that kind of defense" is legitimate.

What Browne is probably trying to do is not argue for a complete acquittal of Bales, Conway said, but instead work to ratchet down the charges. A full acquittal would require that Browne convince a military jury that his client "was unable to perceive the wrongfulness of his or her acts," Conway explained. "That's a tough hurdle."

More likely, Bales' defense will argue that his client's acts "were not premeditated," Conway said. That could possibly expose him to lesser offenses, such as second-degree murder or even manslaughter.

Such mental health determinations "are very relevant" in terms of determining whether Bales faces the death penalty for his alleged acts, Conway said.

Click image to see more photos

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"Always positive": Neighbors, army colleagues describe Bales

As his legal preparations get under way, military colleagues and neighbors who knew Bales are still reeling from the shock that he is the suspect in the Afghanistan massacre.

Originally from the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood, "Bobby" Bales, the youngest of five sons, was described by neighbors as a well-liked, popular and kind extrovert, a high-school football player who looked out for an autistic child up the street, the New York Times' James Dao reported Monday.

"Mr. Bales was a gregarious, chatty, engaged teenager who played football and threw himself into an array of clubs and activities, including theater," Dao wrote, citing Bales' Norwood High School principal David Griffel: "He's one of those kids you remember: a real extrovert."

Army colleagues in Washington state who served with him in Iraq similarly described a sunny Bales to reporters, using words like "solid," and offering up photos of him wearing a broad grin.

Bales was "a really good" soldier and "one of those guys who was always positive," Maj. Brent Clemmer told NPR's Martin Kaste on Sunday. Clemmer nominated Bales to receive a medal for valor for his conduct in the battle of Najaf in 2007, but he did not receive it, Kaste reported, noting that Bales did get awards for good conduct.

But there may have been signs that things became harder for Bales after his third Iraq tour, in which he suffered a brain concussion when his vehicle hit an IED. On that tour, he also lost part of a foot in another incident.

[Related: Hidden perils of traumatic brain injuries]

"I've talked to people who have done both Iraq and Afghanistan, and they say they'd pick Iraq any day of the week because Afghanistan is just so brutal," Bales' former platoon leader in Iraq, Capt. Chris Alexander, told NPR's Kaste.

Bales' attorney Browne previously said that Bales and his family were unhappy about his most recent deployment to Afghanistan, which he began in December.

The surprise combat tour came after a series of other setbacks and disappointments for Bales and his family related to his Army career over the past year.

In a blog that Bales' wife, Karilyn Bales, kept of family life, which the New York Times reported on, she wrote last year about their disappointment that Bales had not received a promotion to sergeant first class, which would have come with a pay increase of about $350 per month. But she tried to see the bright side, saying maybe it would free the family to relocate to a new military base where they could have adventures and more control over their lives (and fewer combat deployments). On her list of preferred destinations, the Times reported: Germany ("best adventure opportunity!"), Italy, Hawaii ("nuff said!) and Kentucky, near her husband's family in southern Ohio.

That was her last entry, in a blog called the Bales' Family Adventures, which has since been removed.

More popular Yahoo! News stories:

? Staff Sgt. Robert Bales named as Afghanistan massacre suspect

? Afghanistan killings suspect Robert Bales held at Kansas base

? 'Kony 2012' filmmaker hospitalized after being detained in San Diego

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For Lawyer in Afghan Killings, the Latest in a Series of Challenging Defenses - New York Times

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A litigious lifetime would pass before he would become the lawyer for the soldier accused of one of the worst American war crimes in decades, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who was charged on Friday with 17 counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Afghan civilians, including nine children. But even 40 years ago, long before Mr. Browne was known as one of the Pacific Northwest’s most prominent and controversial defense lawyers, he was inclined to make a distinctive case.

“I did all the research and learned that you would not qualify if you were over 6 feet 6 inches tall,” Mr. Browne recalled.

He was tall, but was he tall enough? He consulted with pacifist Quakers. He received notes from two doctors. He did stretching exercises. Then he faced the recruiter.

“They made me take my shoes off, push my arches down to the ground and do all sorts of things,” Mr. Browne said. “I was still well over 6-6.”

It was not the last time Mr. Browne would prove expansive and elusive. And although he never went to war, he did go into a kind of perpetual combat. For four decades, he has been the voluble and sometimes victorious defender of the virtually indefensible.

“Attorney John Henry Browne,” read a headline on the cover of Pacific, a Seattle news magazine. “He shoots from the hip to defend the notorious.”

That article ran in 1983.

Benjamin Ng, convicted of killing 13 in the 1983 Wah Mee massacre, this city’s worst mass murder? Mr. Browne saved him from the death penalty by arguing that Mr. Ng had suffered a brain injury earlier in life.

Martin Pang, who set a fire that killed four firefighters in 1995? Charged with murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Colton Harris-Moore, the teenager known as the Barefoot Bandit, whose two-year, three-country crime spree terrorized families, littered the landscape with crashed stolen planes and ended in 2010 with an armed boat chase in the Bahamas? He should be free by the time he is 25.

Now, at 65, Mr. Browne has taken on still another case of a lifetime, one that will play out far beyond any Seattle courtroom.

Sergeant Bales, a decorated veteran of three tours in Iraq before he went to Afghanistan in December, is accused of killing 17 civilians and trying to kill six others on March 11. Some reports say he set some victims on fire. The killings have enraged Afghans and Americans and have increased calls for the United States to exit Afghanistan.

The Army kept Sergeant Bales’s identity secret for five days after he was arrested, and it has tried to purge the Internet of information about him.

But global tension and military reserve have done little to quiet Mr. Browne, a talkative man who works out of a century-old brick building in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

“He’s definitely a renegade among defense attorneys,” said Daniel T. Satterberg, the King County prosecuting attorney, who has known Mr. Browne for a quarter-century and has clashed with him more than once. “And I mean that in a respectful sense. He is his own man. He calls his own shots, and he doesn’t have to answer to anybody.”

Mr. Browne is as loose and improvisational as the Army is buttoned-up and scripted. They wear camouflage and crew cuts. He wears blue velvet blazers and shoulder-length hair. Ask him a question, and he might not stop answering it.

“People understand that we have created these soldiers,” Mr. Browne said in an interview. “Your tax dollars, my tax dollars are funding this. We all have responsibility there. That’s why the government wants to paint him as a rogue soldier, because the government doesn’t want to take responsibility. I’m not sure if this is a good metaphor, but in the Frankenstein movies, Frankenstein was not the monster. The monster was Dr. Frankenstein, who created Frankenstein.”

“We’re putting these young men and women in impossible situations,” he continued. “I think the general public knows that, and I think this has brought to the public attention a dialogue about the war that the government would rather not have.”

Mr. Browne has plenty of detractors. He is all flair and splash in a city not known for either. He does not mix frequently with the city’s other powerful lawyers.

When he rides the ferry home to Bainbridge Island in the evening, he sits alone, reading or listening to an iPod. (The guitarist William Ackerman is a favorite.)

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For Lawyer in Afghan Killings, the Latest in a Series of Challenging Defenses - New York Times

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A litigious lifetime would pass before he would become the lawyer for the soldier accused of one of the worst American war crimes in decades, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who was charged on Friday with 17 counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Afghan civilians, including nine children. But even 40 years ago, long before Mr. Browne was known as one of the Pacific Northwest’s most prominent and controversial defense lawyers, he was inclined to make a distinctive case.

“I did all the research and learned that you would not qualify if you were over 6 feet 6 inches tall,” Mr. Browne recalled.

He was tall, but was he tall enough? He consulted with pacifist Quakers. He received notes from two doctors. He did stretching exercises. Then he faced the recruiter.

“They made me take my shoes off, push my arches down to the ground and do all sorts of things,” Mr. Browne said. “I was still well over 6-6.”

It was not the last time Mr. Browne would prove expansive and elusive. And although he never went to war, he did go into a kind of perpetual combat. For four decades, he has been the voluble and sometimes victorious defender of the virtually indefensible.

“Attorney John Henry Browne,” read a headline on the cover of Pacific, a Seattle news magazine. “He shoots from the hip to defend the notorious.”

That article ran in 1983.

Benjamin Ng, convicted of killing 13 in the 1983 Wah Mee massacre, this city’s worst mass murder? Mr. Browne saved him from the death penalty by arguing that Mr. Ng had suffered a brain injury earlier in life.

Martin Pang, who set a fire that killed four firefighters in 1995? Charged with murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Colton Harris-Moore, the teenager known as the Barefoot Bandit, whose two-year, three-country crime spree terrorized families, littered the landscape with crashed stolen planes and ended in 2010 with an armed boat chase in the Bahamas? He should be free by the time he is 25.

Now, at 65, Mr. Browne has taken on still another case of a lifetime, one that will play out far beyond any Seattle courtroom.

Sergeant Bales, a decorated veteran of three tours in Iraq before he went to Afghanistan in December, is accused of killing 17 civilians and trying to kill six others on March 11. Some reports say he set some victims on fire. The killings have enraged Afghans and Americans and have increased calls for the United States to exit Afghanistan.

The Army kept Sergeant Bales’s identity secret for five days after he was arrested, and it has tried to purge the Internet of information about him.

But global tension and military reserve have done little to quiet Mr. Browne, a talkative man who works out of a century-old brick building in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

“He’s definitely a renegade among defense attorneys,” said Daniel T. Satterberg, the King County prosecuting attorney, who has known Mr. Browne for a quarter-century and has clashed with him more than once. “And I mean that in a respectful sense. He is his own man. He calls his own shots, and he doesn’t have to answer to anybody.”

Mr. Browne is as loose and improvisational as the Army is buttoned-up and scripted. They wear camouflage and crew cuts. He wears blue velvet blazers and shoulder-length hair. Ask him a question, and he might not stop answering it.

“People understand that we have created these soldiers,” Mr. Browne said in an interview. “Your tax dollars, my tax dollars are funding this. We all have responsibility there. That’s why the government wants to paint him as a rogue soldier, because the government doesn’t want to take responsibility. I’m not sure if this is a good metaphor, but in the Frankenstein movies, Frankenstein was not the monster. The monster was Dr. Frankenstein, who created Frankenstein.”

“We’re putting these young men and women in impossible situations,” he continued. “I think the general public knows that, and I think this has brought to the public attention a dialogue about the war that the government would rather not have.”

Mr. Browne has plenty of detractors. He is all flair and splash in a city not known for either. He does not mix frequently with the city’s other powerful lawyers.

When he rides the ferry home to Bainbridge Island in the evening, he sits alone, reading or listening to an iPod. (The guitarist William Ackerman is a favorite.)

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Lawyer on way to meet Afghan suspect

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The lawyer for a US Army sergeant suspected in the slaughter of 16 Afghan villagers is flying to Kansas to meet with his client as formal charges against the 10-year veteran loom within days.

John Henry Browne of Seattle said he plans to meet on Monday with Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at the maximum security military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Charges against Bales, 38, are expected to be filed within a week and if the case goes to court the trial will be held in the United States, said a legal expert with the US military familiar with the investigation.

That expert said charges were still being decided and that the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the United States to participate, he said.

Military lawyers say once lawyers involved in the initial investigation of an alleged crime involving a service member have what they believe to be a solid understanding of what happened and are satisfied with the evidence collected, they draft charges and present them to a commander. That person then makes a judgment on whether there is probable cause to believe that an offence was committed and that the accused committed it.

That commander then 'prefers' the charges to a convening authority, who typically is the commander of the brigade to which the accused is assigned but could be of higher rank.

Records and interviews have revealed Bales as a man appreciated by friends and family who won military commendations. Yet he also faced professional disappointment, financial trouble and brushes with the law.

According to details from interviews, Bales was bypassed for promotion, struggled to pay for his house and eyed a way out of his job at a Washington state military base months before he was accused of the killings in two Afghanistan villages.

While Bales sat in an isolated cell, classmates and neighbours from a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio remembered him as a 'happy-go-lucky' high school football player who took care of a special needs child and watched out for troublemakers in the neighbourhood.

But court records and interviews show that the 10-year veteran - with a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan - had joined the army after a Florida investment job went sour, had a Seattle-area home condemned, struggled to make payments on another and failed to get a promotion or a transfer a year ago.

His legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show.

Military officials say that after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, Bales crept away on March 11 to two sleeping villages, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the 16 killed were children and 11 belonged to one family.

'This is some crazy stuff if it's true,' Steve Berling, a high school classmate, said of the revelations about the father of two known as 'Bobby' in his hometown of Norwood, Ohio.

His former platoon leader said Bales was a model soldier inspired by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to serve, who saved lives in firefights on his second of three Iraq deployments.

'He's one of the best guys I ever worked with,' said Army Captain Chris Alexander, who led Bales on a 15-month deployment in Iraq.

'He is not some psychopath. He's an outstanding soldier who has given a lot for this country.'

But pressing family troubles were hinted at by his wife, Kari, on multiple blogs posted with names like The Bales Family Adventures and BabyBales. A year ago, she wrote that Bales was hoping for a promotion or a transfer after nine years stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Washington.

'We are hoping to have as much control as possible' over the future, Kari Bales wrote last March 25. 'Who knows where we will end up. I just hope that we are able to rent our house so that we can keep it. I think we are both still in shock.'

After Bales lost out on a promotion to E7 - a sergeant first-class - the family hoped to go to either Germany, Italy or Hawaii for an 'adventure', she said. Instead the army redeployed his unit - the 2nd Infantry Division of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, named after armoured Stryker vehicles - to Afghanistan.

It would be Bales' fourth tour in a war zone. He joined the military two months after the September 11 attacks and spent more than three years in Iraq during three separate assignments since 2003. His lawyer said he was injured twice in Iraq - once losing part of his foot - but his 20 or so commendations do not include the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in combat.

Alexander said Bales wasn't injured while he oversaw him during their deployment - Bales' second in Iraq. He called Bales a 'very solid' non-commissioned officer who didn't have more difficulty than his fellow soldiers with battlefield stress. Bales shot at a man aiming a rocket-propelled grenade at his platoon's vehicle in Mosul, Iraq, sending the grenade flying over the vehicle.

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Lawyer: Afghan killings suspect remembers little

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FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — The Army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a nighttime shooting rampage has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre, his lawyer said Monday after meeting his client for the first time.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little or nothing of the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held.

Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything about the shooting, Browne said, "No," but added: "I haven't gotten that far with him yet."

In an earlier interview with CBS, Browne said unequivocally that Bales can't remember the shootings.

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, though charges could come this week. The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war.

Earlier Monday, Browne met with his client behind bars for the first time to begin building a defense and said the soldier gave a powerfully moving account of what it is like to be on the ground in Afghanistan.

Browne said he and Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at the military prison, met for more than three hours at Fort Leavenworth.

"What's going on on the ground in Afghanistan, you read about it. I read about it. But it's totally different when you hear about it from somebody who's been there," Browne told the AP. "It's just really emotional."

Browne, a Seattle attorney who defended serial killer Ted Bundy and a thief known as the "Barefoot Bandit," has said he has handled three or four military cases. The defense team includes a military defense lawyer, Maj. Thomas Hurley. The lawyers have said they plan to meet with Bales this week.

At their meeting, Browne said Bales clarified a story, provided initially by the soldier's family, about the timing of a roadside bomb that blew off the leg of one of Bales' friends. It was two days before the shooting, not one, and Bales didn't see the explosion, just the aftermath, Browne said.

The details of the blast could not be immediately confirmed.

Military officials have said that Bales, after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, crept away to two villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the dead were children and 11 belonged to one family.

Bales arrived at Fort Leavenworth last Friday and is being held in the same prison as other prominent defendants. Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is charged with leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website, has been held there on occasion as he awaited trial.

Bales is "already being integrated into the normal pretrial confinement routine," prison spokeswoman Rebecca Steed said.

The routine includes recreation, meals and cleaning the area where he is living. Steed said once his meetings with his attorneys are complete later in the week, Bales will resume the normal integration process.

Bales' wife, Karilyn, offered her condolences to the victims' families and said Monday she wants to know what happened. She said her family and her in-laws are profoundly sad, and that what they've read and seen in news reports is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire."

"My family including my and Bob's extended families are all profoundly sad. We extend our condolences to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out too all of them, especially to the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished," Karilyn Bales said in a statement.

Court records and interviews show that Bales had commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He enlisted in the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He also faced a number of troubles in recent years: A Florida investment job went sour, his Seattle-area home was condemned as he struggled to make payments on another, and he failed to get a recent promotion.

Legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and-run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, according to court records. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed.

In March 1998, Bales was given a $65 citation for possessing alcohol at Daytona Beach, Fla. He did not pay the fine nor did he defend himself in court. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but it later expired.

If the case goes to court, the trial will be held in the U.S., said a legal expert with the U.S. military familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

That expert said charges were still being decided and that the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the U.S. to participate, he said.

After their investigation, military attorneys could draft charges and present them to a commander, who then makes a judgment on whether there is probable cause to believe that an offense was committed and that the accused committed it.

That commander then submits the charges to a convening authority, who typically is the commander of the brigade to which the accused is assigned but could be of higher rank.

___

Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Seattle and Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report. Johnson reported from Seattle.

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Lawyer: Afghan shooter suspect remembers little- Top commander: US must stick to Afghan strategy

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FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan – ?The lawyer for the Army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a nighttime shooting rampage met his client for the first time Monday and said the solider has a sketchy memory of the massacre.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little during the time the military believes on a killing spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held.

Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything at all about the shooting, Browne said, "I haven't gotten that far with him yet."

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, though charges could come this week. The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war.

Earlier Monday, Browne met with his client behind bars for the first time to begin building a defense and said the soldier gave a powerfully moving account of what it is like to be on the ground in Afghanistan.

Browne said he and Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at the military prison, met for more than three hours in the morning at Fort Leavenworth. Browne, co-counsel Emma Scanlan and Bales were expected to talk again in the afternoon.

"What's going on on the ground in Afghanistan, you read about it. I read about it. But it's totally different when you hear about it from somebody who's been there," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone during a lunch break. "It's just really emotional."

Browne, a Seattle attorney who defended serial killer Ted Bundy and a thief known as the "Barefoot Bandit," has said he has handled three or four military cases. The defense team includes a military defense lawyer, Maj. Thomas Hurley.

At their meeting, Browne said Bales clarified a story, provided initially by the soldier's family, about the timing of a roadside bomb that blew off the leg of one of Bales' friends. It was two days before the shooting, not one, and Bales didn't see the explosion, just the aftermath, Browne said.

The details of the blast could not be immediately confirmed.

Military officials have said that Bales, after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, crept away to two villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the dead were children and 11 belonged to one family.

Bales arrived at Fort Leavenworth last Friday and is being held in the same prison as other prominent defendants. Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is charged with leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website, has been held there on occasion as he awaited trial.

Bales is "already being integrated into the normal pretrial confinement routine," post spokeswoman Rebecca Steed said.

That includes recreation, meals and cleaning the area where he is living. Steed said once his meetings with his attorneys are complete later in the week, Bales will resume the normal integration process.

Bales' wife, Karilyn, offered her condolences to the victims' families Monday and said she wants to know what happened. She said her family and her in-laws are profoundly sad. She said what they've read and seen in news reports is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire."

"My family including my and Bob's extended families are all profoundly sad. We extend our condolences to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out too all of them, especially to the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished," Karilyn Bales said in a statement.

Court records and interviews show that Bales had commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He enlisted in the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He also faced a number of troubles in recent years: A Florida investment job went sour, his Seattle-area home was condemned as he struggled to make payments on another, and he failed to get a recent promotion.

Legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and-run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, according to court records. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed.

In March 1998, Bales was given a $65 citation for possessing alcohol at Daytona Beach, Fla. He did not pay the fine nor did he defend himself in court. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but it later expired.

If the case goes to court, the trial will be held in the U.S., said a legal expert with the U.S. military familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

That expert said charges were still being decided and that the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the U.S. to participate, he said.

After their investigation, military attorneys could draft charges and present them to a commander, who then makes a judgment on whether there is probable cause to believe that an offense was committed and that the accused committed it.

That commander then submits the charges to a convening authority, who typically is the commander of the brigade to which the accused is assigned but could be of higher rank.

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Lawyer meets with US soldier accused in Afghan killings

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AppId is over the quota

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. -- The Seattle criminal lawyer representing Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is set to face charges in last week's killing of 16 Afghan men, women and children, said their first attorney-client meeting on Monday was "almost unbelievable" in its emotional impact.

John Henry Browne, who also has represented serial rapist and killer Ted Bundy and other convicted killers, said in an interview that the session with his new client was unforgettable.

"Probably the most emotional day I've ever had as a human being," Browne said in a brief interview. "I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Staff Sgt. Robert Balesis man accused of killing 16 civilians in an attack on Afghan villagers.

He did not provide details of why he felt that way or anything he might have discussed with Staff Sgt. Bales about the morning of March 11, when the Afghan civilians in Kandahar province were shot, stabbed and burned.

"It's been an extremely traumatic morning talking to our client," Browne said, quickly ending the interview. "It was almost unbelievable."

Browne told CBS that Bales has no memory of the incident.

"He has no memory," Browne told CBS News about the incident. "He has an early memory of that evening and a later memory of that evening but he doesn't have any in between."

Browne said Bales had not admitted to the killings. He also said Bales was "in shock."

"He's fixated on the troops left on the ground and what they're accusing him of and how that may have negative ramifications on his friends and patriots," Browne told the network.

Browne also said his client was not drunk on the night of the massacre but had had a "couple of sips of something."

Staff Sgt. Bales, 38, arrived Friday at the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., a military prison for pretrial detainees and convicts with sentences shorter than five years.

His wife and two young children are staying at his home base, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in Washington state.

Bales' wife, Karilyn, described the mass killing as a "terrible and heartbreaking?tragedy" in a statement released Monday.

Bales expressed her shock at the atrocities her husband is accused of committing in a house-to-house rampage in Afghanistan, according to a statement obtained by ABC News.

She said her family wanted to extend "our condolences?to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out to all of them, especially to the parents,?brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished."

The wife said she had few answers in the case. "I too want to know what happened. I want to know how this could be," she said, adding that, "What has been reported is?completely out of character of the man I know and admire."

Robert Bales and about a dozen other pretrial inmates are held separately from the convicts in their daily schedule, said Fort Leavenworth spokeswoman Rebecca Steed. The daily schedule includes three meals, two hours in the library and an hour outside on the basketball court or weight machines. The inmates are roused at 5:00am and lights go out at 10:05pm.

On Monday, Bales's orientation as an inmate was suspended to allow him to meet with his legal team, Browne and his partner, Emma Scanlan. They were joined by a detailed military lawyer. Prison officials made arrangements to allow Bales to meet with the lawyers until "mid-week," and then he is scheduled to resume the prison routine, Steed said.

Prosecutors are expected to file charges against Bales this week, defense officials have said.

Assuming the case goes to trial, military officials said that witnesses in Afghanistan, including the family members of victims of the March 11 rampage, could be brought to the US to testify.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

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Lawyer for Afghan accused describes talks

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AppId is over the quota

The lawyer for the US Army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians says the soldier has only a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre.

Lawyer John Henry Browne says 38-year-old Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little during the time the military believes he went on a rampage through two Afghan villages.

Browne spoke with The Associated Press from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Bales is being held.

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, though charges could come this week.

The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war.

Under the US military justice system, prosecutors draft charges to be filed against an accused soldier, then present them to his unit commander, who must then decide whether there is enough evidence to believe a crime was committed.

If so, the commander signs the charging documents so that the case can be "preferred" for formal prosecution.

"My understanding is that the preferral of charges on Sergeant Bales will be announced by (his commanding officer in) Afghanistan," the US Army official told AFP on Monday.

"I expect it to be within the next few days. It is that point in time when a suspect is formally charged."

Before trial, Bales must appear at an "Article 32" hearing - a preliminary hearing at which prosecutors argue for a court-martial.

Browne said last week that Bales had recently been under stress, which was heightened when he witnessed a fellow soldier seriously wounded by stepping on a mine. He did not explain the legal defence he would use for his client.

The US media reported that Bales, who in addition to Browne also has a military lawyer, and his wife were enduring financial problems.

The non-commissioned officer, who joined the Army two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, served three tours of duty in Iraq and had been in Afghanistan since December.

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