US soldier's lawyer slams Afghan killings 'blackout'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
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."

View the original article here

US soldier's lawyer slams Afghan killings 'blackout'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
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."

View the original article here

Soldier's lawyer plans trip to Afghanistan

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — The lawyer for the Army staff sergeant suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians questioned Tuesday the quality of the evidence against his client and said he planned to travel to Afghanistan to gather his own.

John Henry Browne said he met with Robert Bales for 11 hours over two days at Fort Leavenworth, where his client is being held. He added that there was still a lot he didn't know about the March 11 shootings.

"I don't know about the evidence in this case. I don't know that the government is going to prove much. There's no forensic evidence. There's no confessions," Browne said outside his hotel near the post.

"I'm certainly not saying that we're not taking responsibility for this in the right way, at the right time. But for now, I'm interested in what the evidence is," he said. "It's not like a crime scene in the United States."

Browne said there were legal, social and political issues linked to the case and how it will be prosecuted. "The war's on trial. I'm not putting the war on trial," he said. "I'm not putting the war on trial, but the war is on trial."

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet. Browne expects that he will be charged 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.

Browne met with his client behind bars for the first time Monday to begin building a defense.

On Tuesday, Browne described Bales as "a soldier's soldier" who followed orders, including deploying to Afghanistan despite not wanting to go. Bales has been reported to have had financial troubles.

"That doesn't mean anything. Sure, there are financial problems. I have financial problems. Ninety-nine percent of America has financial problem," he said. "You don't go kill women and children because you have financial problems."

Browne has said Bales has a sketchy memory of events from before and after the killings but recalls very little or nothing of the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne said.

Browne said there were potential mental health issues for his client, but that he didn't have expertise to make a qualified judgment. "Dragging parts of bodies around is not something that really you forget very often," he said. "He's in shock."

Also Tuesday, a police report obtained by The News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma, Wash., said Bales was arrested in 2002 in the drunken assault of a casino security guard. The details are at odds with a description of the arrest by Browne, who had said it was an incident involving a woman Bales dated before his wife. An assault charge was dismissed after Bales completed 20 hours of anger management training.

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.

After their investigation, military attorneys could present charges 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.

View the original article here