Hearing for Bradley Manning focuses on harsh prison treatment

At a pre-trial hearing, defense lawyers for Private Bradley Manning focused on the treatment he received while held in a Virginia brig, saying the case should be dismissed. Manning is accused of leaking massive amounts of material to WikiLeaks. 

|
Patrick Semansky/AP/File
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, (c.), steps out of a security vehicle as he is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., for a pretrial hearing Nov. 28. Manning is charged with aiding the enemy by causing hundreds of thousands of classified documents to be published on the secret-sharing website WikiLeaks.

A pre-trial hearing for U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of masterminding a massive leak of classified material to the WikiLeaks website, focused on Saturday on a 2011 incident when he broke down and cried in a military brig.

The hearing is to determine whether Manning should face a court-martial on suspicion of leaking thousands of classified documents, including military reports and diplomatic cables.

Manning's lawyers have sought to have the case against him dismissed, arguing that his treatment after arriving at the Marine Corps brig in QuanticoVirginia, in July 2010 was unduly harsh.

Saturday's proceedings, on the fifth day of the hearing, focused on the events of Jan. 18, 2011, when Manning broke down and began crying after falling while guards were removing his shackles in an exercise room.

Defense attorneys allege that Manning became especially distraught that day because guards were bullying him. Manning himself testified earlier that his guards seemed angry on the morning the incident occurred, making him nervous.

One of Manning's guards at the time, former Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline, acknowledged in his testimony that military personnel at Quantico had been irritated by a pro-Manning protest a day before the incident in the exercise room. The protest had snarled traffic around Quantico.

"They were annoyed by it," Cline said. "It would kind of close down parts of the base and it would kind of hinder them or interrupt the way they would travel to get home or to do other things."

Manning faces up to life in prison if convicted of charges he played a role in the leaking of secrets by WikiLeaks, which stunned governments around the world by publishing intelligence documents and diplomatic cables, mostly in 2010.

Prosecutors have alleged that Manning, without authorization while on intelligence duty, disclosed hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables, military reports and video of a military helicopter attack in Iraq in which two Reuters journalists were killed.

WikiLeaks has never confirmed Manning was the source of any documents it released.

Manning's lawyers are working with the court on the language of a proposed plea involving less serious charges. A prison term of at least 16 years is under discussion, one of his attorneys said, but until a plea is formally entered and accepted, the length of any prison term is uncertain.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Hearing for Bradley Manning focuses on harsh prison treatment
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1202/Hearing-for-Bradley-Manning-focuses-on-harsh-prison-treatment
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe