Charges against Robert Bales are still being decided and US officials are discussing compensation for victims' relatives
Charges against an American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians are expected to be filed within a week, and any trial would be held in the United States, according to a legal expert with the US military.
Staff Sgt Robert Bales is suspected of leaving a US base in southern Afghanistan, entering homes and shooting dead nine children, four men and three women before dawn on 11 March.
He is being held in an isolated cell at the maximum-security US military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The defence lawyer John Henry Browne said he planned to meet Bales on Monday. Browne has represented clients including the serial killer Ted Bundy and Colton Harris-Moore, known as the Barefoot Bandit. Bales will also have at least one military lawyer.
Court records and interviews have revealed that Bales, 38, had a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also faced a number of troubles: a Florida investment job went sour, a home was condemned while he struggled to make payments on another, and he recently failed to get a promotion.
The shootings have further strained ties between the US government and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who has accused the US military of not co-operating with a delegation he appointed to investigate the killings in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province.
The Afghan investigators are not convinced that one soldier could have walked to two villages and shot and killed 16 civilians. Syed Mohammad Azeen, a tribal elder from Balandi village, said he and other villagers believed that more than a dozen soldiers were involved.
Other villagers said they saw 16 to 20 US troops in the villages. It is unclear whether the soldiers the villagers saw were part of a search party that left the base to look for Bales, who was reported missing. A US official familiar with the case said allegations that 16 to 20 people were involved in the killings were "completely false".
The military legal expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there had been good co-operation between US and Afghan investigative teams, and Afghan officials had provided important evidence for the case.
The expert said US officials were discussing the best way to compensate the relatives of the victims and those wounded. The expert said charges were still being decided and the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the US to participate, he said.