Army investigator testifies as massacre hearing

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) — An Army investigator says that one of the witnesses to the massacre of civilians in Afghanistan last March claimed that at least two American soldiers were involved.

Criminal Investigations Command Special Agent Leona Mansapit testified Saturday night during a preliminary hearing for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. Bales faces 16 counts of murder in the overnight killings at two remote villages.

Mansapit says a woman whose husband was shot named Masoma Dawood recalled seeing two soldiers.

Every other eyewitness has indicated that only one U.S. soldier was involved, and a surveillance video showed only one soldier returning to the American’s base after the killings.

Interviewed months later, Dawood reported having seen two soldiers in her room, and that one of them held her back as the other shot her husband.