FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — US staff sergeant Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a door-to-door rampage, touched down Friday night in Kansas City and has been transferred to a detention facility at nearby Fort Leavenworth, the US military announced.
Bales’ arrival came hours after his identitity was announced. The white 38-year-old is married with two children and based out of Washington state’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He arrived in Afghanistan on Dec. 3, FOX reported.
He and his family live in nearby Lake Tapps, The Wall Street Journal reported, adding that Bales is from the 3rd Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which deployed to Afghanistan in December.
Kassie Holland, 27, a neighbor, told reporters she knew Bales and his wife and two children well, sharing birthday parties and July 4 barbecues.
“Just a great, great guy,” she said. “Happy, laughing, life of the party.”
NBC News said Bales was a native of Ohio and his wife was said to be an executive at a Seattle-area company. She and his children have been moved on base out of fears for their safety.
Online military-related references to Bales, including an article posted on an army publication, were expunged shortly after his name was released, FOX said.
Once at Fort Leavenworth, Bales was expected to be held at the army post’s maximum security prison, which was built in 2002 and currently holds about 450 inmates.
It is not yet clear what the suspect will be charged with, and officials said it was not clear how long he would be kept at Fort Leavenworth. “No decisions have been made. We’re not there in the process,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the Journal.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday blasted the US for failing to hand him over to Afghan authorities, describing the lack of cooperation between the two countries as intolerable.
The New York Times reported earlier that his brief presence in Kuwait sparked a diplomatic feud after Kuwaiti officials said they were not briefed about the accused soldier’s arrival by their US counterparts.
Bales allegedly left his base in the Panjway district of Kandahar province Sunday and walked to a nearby village, where he went on a house-to-house rampage during the early hours. Most of the victims were women and children.
His lawyer, John Henry Browne, said at a press conference Thursday his client was a “highly decorated” soldier from the Midwest who earned “every award you can get.”
Browne told reporters that prior to his client’s deployment in Afghanistan, he had been on three tours of duty in Iraq after enlisting in the army immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks. He added that Bales was upset on the day of his alleged attack after seeing a colleague have his leg blown off a day earlier.
Browne said he had twice been injured on previous deployments to Iraq — once when an IED explosion caused a car accident and another time in combat, which led to him losing part of one foot.