KABUL, Afghanistan, March 26 (UPI) -- An unborn child was among the victims of an attack in which a U.S. soldier was accused of killing 17 Afghans, an Afghan official said.
There has been a discrepancy between the the number of victims in charges filed by the U.S. military against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales and the number of dead reported by Afghan officials.
The Kandahar province police chief, Brig. Gen. Abdul Razak, told The New York Times the U.S. charges include the death of an unborn baby.
"The Americans are right and one of the females was pregnant, which is why they are saying 17," he said in a Times report Monday.
Other Afghan officials have said the death toll in the attack was 16,.
U.S. officials are reported to have paid family members $50,000 for each person who was killed and $11,000 to each of six people wounded in the attack.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the death of an unborn baby could be considered a murder if the killer knew, or didn't know, a victim was pregnant. The newspaper said it was not clear if the mother of the unborn child was killed in the attack or if she was among the wounded.
