Article updated: 11/12/2012 7:06 AM

Afghans find hope for justice in video testimony

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U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, center, is shown Monday, Nov. 5, during a preliminary hearing in a military courtroom at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. An Afghan National Army guard who reported seeing a U.S. soldier outside a remote base the night 16 civilians were massacred in March said the man did not stop even after being asked three times to do so. The guard, named Nematullah, testified by live video from Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Friday Nov. 9, during an overnight session for a hearing in the case against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

Associated Press

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Through a video monitor in a military courtroom near Seattle, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales saw young Afghan girls smile beneath bright head coverings before they described the bloodbath he's accused of committing. From the other side of that video link, in Afghanistan, another man saw something else: signs that justice will be done. "I saw the person who killed my brother sitting there, head down with guilt," Haji Mullah Baraan said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "He didn't look up toward the camera."