Afghan Pesident Hamid Karzai on Friday accused the U.S. of failing to cooperate over an investigation into the massacre of 16 Afghan villagers blamed on a lone American army sniper.
“The Afghan government didn't receive cooperation from the USA regarding the surrender of the U.S. soldiers to the Afghan government. This [civilian casualties] has been going on [for] too long,” Mr. Karzai told relatives of those killed.
“This behaviour cannot be tolerated,” Mr. Karzai added.
Afghan leaders demanded that the chief suspect face a public trial in Afghanistan after he allegedly walked off his military base in southern province Kandahar and killed 16 civilians, most of them women and children.
But on Wednesday he was flown to Kuwait, a first step towards being charged and put on trial abroad. On Friday he was en route to a maximum security detention facility at a U.S. military base in Kansas.
“We asked for justice rather than compensation,” said Mr. Karzai.
He met 20 to 30 relatives of the victims at his palace in Kabul on Friday, where two representatives said 15 to 20 American soldiers were involved in the massacre, but provided no details to support their claim.
The suspect's civilian lawyer John Henry Browne said it was possible he could be tried at any major U.S. garrison, but ruled out Afghanistan as an option.
