Judge accepts soldier's guilty plea in Afghan massacre

Elizabeth Weise and Gary Strauss | USA TODAY

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales pleaded guilty Wednesday to the slaying of 16 Afghan civilians in 2012, telling a military judge, "Sir, as far as why: I've asked that question a million times since then. There's not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did."

The judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, accepted the plea, ensuring that Bales will avoid the death penalty.

A jury will decide in August whether he will be sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

Bales, 39, entered the plea to premeditated murder and other charges. Nance explained Bales' rights and asked if he understood them. Bales stood and answered, "Yes, sir, I do."

Bales, dressed in full uniform, was alert and spoke in a confident voice as he answered the judge's questions, surrounded by six friends and family.

Defense attorneys John Henry Browne and Emma Scanlan said after the hearing that Bales is seeking a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years.

"There is no death penalty on the table, and there is the opportunity for life with parole,'' Browne said. "We never thought we'd get there.''

Bales told the judge he had been drinking contraband alcohol, snorting Valium and taking steroids before the attack. He was serving his fourth tour in a combat zone. The allegations against him raised questions about the toll multiple deployments take on U.S. servicemembers.

Bales told the court that he had been taking the steroids to improve his fitness and that they "definitely increased my irritability and anger.''

The steroid, stanozolol, is a class three controlled substance. Bales was taking it without a prescription or authorization.

The Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash., was charged with 16 counts of premeditated murder in the shootings or stabbings of mostly women and children. He was accused of slipping away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost at Camp Belambay early March 11, 2012, and attacking mud-walled compounds in two nearby villages.

Bales described one of the killings, saying he "went to the nearby village of Alkozai. While inside a compound in Alkozai, I observed a female I now know to be Na'ikmarga. I formed the intent to kill Na'ikmarga, and I did kill Na'ikmarga by shooting her with a firearm. This act was without legal justification, sir."

Nine of the victims, five women and four men, were shot first, and their bodies were burned.

"I remember there being a lantern in the room,'' Bales told the judge. "I remember there being a fire after that situation, and I remember coming back ... with matches in my pocket." He said he did not remember throwing the lantern on the bodies, but "I have seen the pictures, and it's the only thing that makes sense. "

After killing four people in the first village, he returned to his base, then went out again, he said. When the judge asked him what he expected to do, he said he expected to find people and, "Sir, I expected to kill them. "

Bales is with the Army's 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is an amalgamation of the Army's Fort Lewis and the Air Force's McChord Air Force Base. It supports more than 40,000 active-duty Guard and Reserve servicemembers. Bales worked on the base and lived about 30 miles west of it.

Contributing: William M. Welch, USA TODAY; The Associated Press