A US soldier was formally charged Friday with 17 murders over the killings of civilians in a village in southern Afghanistan, US forces said in a statement released in Kabul. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, was also accused of six counts of assault and attempted murder in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province earlier this month.
The statement said that under the US military's code of justice, "the maximum possible punishment for a premeditated murder conviction is a dishonourable discharge from the Armed Forces, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade, total forfeiture of pay and allowances, and death". The mandatory minimum sentence is life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, it added.
Bales is currently being held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and a senior US official said earlier that it had "pretty much been decided" the trial would be held in the United States. But relatives of the victims have demanded the proceedings take place in Afghanistan.
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