Sgt Robert Bales confronted by Afghan massacre victim

A US soldier who killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan has been confronted by a victim, as his sentencing heard graphic details of the massacre, BBC reported.  

Staff Sgt Robert Bales, 39, gunned down men, screaming children and elderly women, a jury at Washington state's Joint Base Lewis-McChord was told.

Mohammad Haji Naeem, whose son was killed, asked Sgt Bales why he carried out the shootings.

In June, he admitted the March 2012 massacre in a deal to avoid execution.

A military jury of six must decide whether or not he will ever be eligible for parole. The sentencing phase of the court martial will last from one to two weeks.

On Tuesday, one of nine Afghan villagers flown out to attend the trial angrily challenged Sgt Bales in court, which is south of Seattle.

Mohammad Haji Naeem was shot in the face at close range while his son was killed in the attack, near a remote base in Kandahar province.

"What have I done for you to shoot me in the jaw?" Mr Naeem asked the killer.

For more than an hour and a half, Army prosecutor Lt Col Jay Morse gave jurors the first detailed account of the massacre.

He described how Sgt Bales summarily killed a young girl who was screaming for him to stop beating her father.

Armed with a pistol, a rifle and wearing night-vision goggles, the Ohio native fired indiscriminately, slaughtering 11 members of a single family.

One woman was left clutching bits of her husband's skull, Col Morse said.

"The accused placed his weapon on 'burst' and murdered everyone in the room," the prosecutor told jurors, reports the Associated Press news agency.

Sgt Bales returned to base for more ammunition, woke a fellow soldier and told him he had just shot some people.

The other soldier did not believe him and went back to sleep, the court heard. Sgt Bales left again to continue killing.

A young boy tried to stop Sgt Bales by hitting him with a shovel, but he turned and beat the child.

The court heard he then shot an elderly woman who challenged him, before crushing her skull by stamping on her head.

He poured kerosene from a lamp over the dead bodies and set them on fire.