Soldier gets life in prison for Afghan killing rampage
U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Bales, who admitted to shooting 16 civilians, including nine children, in a 2012 bloody rampage of two villages in Afghanistan, was sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield with Joint Base Lewis-McChord, CNN reports.
Bales’ guilty plea in June spared him the death penalty, according to the report. Villagers wanted Bales to be tried in Afghanistan, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the incident had put U.S.-Afghan relations at a breaking point, according to CNN.
Before Bales joined the military after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, he was a stockbroker banned from trading after failing to pay an arbitration award of more than $1 million levied against him and other traders.
