US pays out for victims of massacre

The families received $50,000 (£31,500) for each person killed and $11,000 for each wounded in the shootings in two villages in Panjwai district earlier this month. Afghan officials say 16 people, including nine children and women, were killed in the attacks.

“We were invited by the foreign and Afghan officials in Panjwai yesterday and they said this money is an assistance from Obama,” Haji Jan Agha, who lost his cousins, said yesterday, referring to the US president.

“The Americans came to Panjwai and handed over compensation to the families,” said Haji Agha Lalai, an influential tribal elder and member of the provincial council.

The sums, much larger than typical payments made by Nato forces to families of civilians killed in military operations in Afghanistan, come as the US tries to mend relations following the killing rampage that has threatened to undermine the international effort here.

Army staff sergeant Robert Bales is accused of twice leaving his base on 11 March to carry out the killings. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and other crimes and could face the death penalty if convicted.

That would seem to support the US government’s assertion – contested by some Afghans – that he acted alone. But it also raises new questions about how the suspect could have carried out the pre-dawn attacks without drawing attention from any Americans on the base.

A spokesman for Nato, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, would not be drawn on the payments yesterday, saying only that coalition members often make compensation payments, but they are usually kept private.

“As the settlement of claims is in most cases a sensitive topic for those who have suffered loss, it is usually a matter of agreement that the terms of the settlement remain confidential,” Col Cummings said. However, civilian death compensations are occasionally made public. In 2010, US troops in Helmand province said they paid between $1,500 and $2,000 for a death and $600-$1,500 for a serious injury.

The provided compensation figures would mean that at least $866,000 was paid out in all. Afghan officials and villagers have counted 16 dead – 12 in the village of Balandi and four in neighbouring Alkozai – and six wounded. The US military has charged Bales with 17 murders without explaining the discrepancy.

The 38-year-old soldier is accused of using his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, to kill four men, four women, two boys and seven girls, then burning some of the bodies. The ages of the children were not disclosed in the charge sheet.

Bales is being held in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The mandatory minimum sentence if he is convicted is life imprisonment with the chance of parole.