JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Defense lawyers told military judges they "can't isolate" the U.S. Army sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians from being part of a dysfunctional team.
The Article 32 hearing, held at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington State, was conducted to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to hold Staff Sgt. Robert Bales for a court-martial.
Defense lawyers told the court Tuesday Bales was a soldier stationed at a U.S. combat outpost where soldiers drank, snorted Valium and took steroids -- which Bales apparently did before asking a friend to "take care of my kids" and leaving the base, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
"We have a dysfunctional, drinking and drugging ... team," civilian defense lawyer Emma Scanlan said in closing. "We can't isolate Sgt. Bales within a bubble."
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Army prosecutors claim Bales walked to Alkozai, where he is accused of killing four people and wounding six, returned to the base and told a friend what he had done, then left for Najiban, where he is accused of killing 12 civilians, the Times said.
"Terrible, terrible things happened. That is clear. The second thing that is clear is that Staff Sgt. Bales did it," Prosecutor Maj. Robert Stelle said.
Stelle urged Col. Lee Deneke to recommend a full court-martial and that it be tried as a capital case, with the possibility of the death penalty.
Bales committed "the worst, most despicable crime a human being can commit: murdering children in their own homes," Stelle said.
Defense lawyers challenged the prosecution's theory that Bales acted alone, with Scanlan noting an Army Criminal Investigations Command agent said Masuma Dawood, whose husband was fatally shot, told her that two soldiers killed her husband.
Scanlan also said the prosecutors' timeline doesn't track, noting that an Afghan guard testified he was certain that the U.S. soldier he saw coming from the killings in Alkozai -- as prosecutors allege Bales did -- returned to Camp Belambay at 1:30 a.m. The shots heard from the direction of Alkozai didn't end until 20 minutes later, Scanlan said.
"I don't know what that means," Scanlan said. "But one thing it means is, if you believe what the government is telling you, that Sgt. Bales is the one who came back through that wire at 1:30 [a.m.], then somebody else was firing for another 20 minutes."
