A number of members of parliament from Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province are reacting with outrage today following the news that the US military decided to “transfer” the soldier responsible for the weekend massacre in their province to Kuwait.
The move came as a number of Afghan officials were calling for the soldier, whose name has not been released, to face a public trial in an Afghan criminal court. The MPs said trying him in Afghanistan would show that “America doesn’t like this soldier and wants to punish him.”
Top US military official Lt. Gen. Scaparotti insisted that the military had informed Afghan leaders of the plan and “they understood.” There has been no confirmation from the Karzai government’s leadership.
The US has insisted that they are taking the massacre seriously. Promises of a serious prosecution for the massacre does not seem promising, however, particularly so close to the end of the Haditha Massacre trials, which ended with no prison time for the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians, including children.
He will get 7 years with parole in 2 years, like the previous mass murderer.
It's the standard go-to plan when an American soldier commits a capital crime overseas: get him out of the country and away from the hands of that nation's law enforcement. He's in the US now, and you can rest assured that he will never have to face an Afghan court for his crimes. OUR finding him guilty or innocent is completely irrelevant now- the end result is that the Afghans will NEVER have their day in court to prosecute this murderer. Somehow I don't think the US is going to honor any sort of extradition request from the Afghans, not a chance.