US soldier recalls little about massacres

The US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers remembers “very little” about the incident, his lawyer said on Monday, as the Pentagon announced he could be charged within days. Lawyer John Henry Browne said Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little or nothing of the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages. “He has an early memory of that evening and he has a later memory ... but he doesn’t have memory of the evening in between,” John Henry Browne told CBS News after meeting Bales for the first time at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas.The 38-year-old soldier is now awaiting charges, which military officials said could come “within the next few days” and will likely be announced by the American military in Afghanistan, a US Army official told AFP. Earlier this week, Bales’ was described as “level-headed.” “Public reports that Sergeant Bales’ supervisors, family and friends describe him as a level-headed, experienced soldier are consistent with information gathered by the defense team,” his lawyers said in a statement, saying it was still “too early” to determine what caused the attack. Earlier this month, Bales allegedly entered a nearby Afghan village and opened fire, killing men, women and children. Meanwhile, reports on Tuesday revealed that the soldier owes $1.5 million from a 2003 arbitration ruling that found him guilty of securities fraud. The National Association of Securities Dealers found that Robert Bales, another man and his company “engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, churning, unauthorised trading and unsuitable investments.” Records show Gary Liebschner of Columbus, Ohio, filed the complaint in 2000, when Bales was a stockbroker. The arbitration panel found Bales’ conduct “fraudulent and malicious.” An Ohio TV station quotes Liebschner’s wife as saying they asked Bales to sell stock to pay medical bills but never received the proceeds. About one-and-a-half years after the complaint was filed, Bales enlisted - just two months after the 9/11 attacks.