Villagers unsatisfied with life sentence for soldier

Associated Press

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash.

The U.S. soldier who massacred 16 Afghan civilians last year in one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole — the most severe sentence possible, but one that left surviving victims and relatives of the dead deeply unsatisfied.

“We wanted this murderer to be executed,” said Hajji Mohammad Wazir, who lost 11 family members in the attack by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. “We were brought all the way from Afghanistan to see if justice would be served. Not our way — justice was served the American way.”

Bales, 40, pleaded guilty in June in a deal to avoid the death penalty for his March 11, 2012, raids near his remote outpost in Kandahar province, when he stalked through mud-walled compounds and shot 22 people — 17 of them women and children.

Some screamed for mercy, while others didn’t even have a chance to get out of bed.

The only possible sen-tences were life in prison without parole, or life with the possibility of release after 20 years.

The soldier showed no emotion as the six jurors chose the former after deliberating for less than two hours.

His mother, sitting in the front row of the court, bowed her head, rocked in her seat, and wept.

“I saw his mother trying to cry, but at least she can go visit him,” Hajji Mohammad Naim, who was shot in the neck, said after the sentencing.

“What about us? Our family members are actually 6 feet under.”