Lawyer: Killings suspect recalls little

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. -- The lawyer for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a nighttime shooting rampage met his client for the first time yesterday and said the soldier has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little from the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held.

Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything at all about the shooting, Browne said, "I haven't gotten that far with him yet."

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings. The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war.

Browne met with his client behind bars for the first time to begin building a defense and said the soldier gave a powerfully moving account of what it is like to be on the ground in Afghanistan.

Browne said he and Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at the military prison, met for more than three hours in the morning.

Browne, a Seattle attorney who defended serial killer Ted Bundy and a thief known as the "Barefoot Bandit," has said he has handled three or four military cases.

Military officials have said that Bales, after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, crept away to two villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire.

Nine of the dead were children and 11 belonged to one family.