US soldier Robert Bales will be charged today with 17 counts of murder and various other charges, including attempted murder, in connection with the March 11th shooting deaths of Afghan civilians, a senior US official said.
Staff Sgt Bales (38) had been serving his fourth combat tour overseas, is expected to be charged in a military courtroom at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is being held.
He is accused of walking away from his remote base in southern Afghanistan and killing 16 civilians in a night time attack.
At least nine victims were children and some others were women. Several sources said 16 people were killed, though some also said the number could be higher.
The Army has not suggested a motive publicly.
A lawyer for the soldier, John Henry Browne, said this week that Sgt Bales did not remember some events at the time of the shooting.
Mr Brown has also said that the sergeant's behaviour could be affected by post-traumatic stress disorder or from a concussion he suffered during a vehicle rollover in Iraq in a previous deployment.
"There's definitely brain injury, no question about it," Mr Browne said.
Mr Browne said yesterday that he expected the charges. "I'm not persuaded by many facts," he said.
"There's no crime scene. There's no DNA. There's no confession, although they're leaking something, which I don't believe until I see it. This is going to be a hard case for the government to prove. And my client can't help me a lot with some of the things because he has mental problems and I believe they're totally legitimate."
The shooting, most likely the deadliest war crime by a single US soldier in the decade of war that has followed the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, has further frayed the relationship between the US and Afghan governments.
Earlier this year US military personnel burned Korans at an Afghan base, an act that prompted public protests and a series of killings.
General John R Allen, a Marine four-star general who commands the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan, told Congress this week that there would be an administrative investigation into the headquarters organization and the command of the soldier's unit.
Sgt Bales' legal proceedings could last years.
He next faces an article 32-hearing, in which the Army formally decides whether to press charges. If he is charged in an article 32-hearing, he likely would face court-martial.
The sergeant has been based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Washington, when he was not deployed overseas.
Although Sgt Bales is being held in Kansas, Mr Browne said that he believed there was a strong chance legal proceedings in the future could take place at Lewis-McChord.
New York Times