Judge reduces possible Manning sentence
2013-01-09 10:56
Fort Meade - A US judge on Tuesday reduced the potential sentence for WikiLeaks
suspect Bradley Manning by 112 days because of his harsh treatment at a
military jail, where he was held in isolation despite advice from
psychiatrists.
Judge Denise Lind said the US Army private's detention conditions were
"excessive" and at times illegal, going beyond what was needed to
ensure his safety and prevent the risk of suicide.
But the judge rejected a request by defence lawyers to dismiss all charges
against Manning because of his nine-month detention at the US Marine Corps
prison in Quantico, Virginia.
The ruling paves the way for a trial in March in which the army private is
accused of "aiding the enemy" by passing a trove of secret government
files to the WikiLeaks website.
Defence attorney David Coombs had argued the court should drop all charges
against Manning on the grounds that he suffered illegal punishment at the
Quantico jail, where he was held in a solitary cell 23 hours a day, kept under
a strict suicide watch and often ordered to strip naked.
Suicide risk
Prosecutors had said strict measures were necessary because Manning posed a
suicide risk.
The judge concluded that the government had to ensure Manning did not take
his life given his mental health history, as he had reported suicidal thoughts
while detained in Kuwait.
"Preventing a detainee suicide is in the legitimate interest of the
government," she said.
But she ruled prison authorities at Quantico should not have kept Manning
under a "rigorous" super-strict suicide watch regime after military
psychiatrists advised he was not suicidal.
Prison officers had no reason to take away Manning's underwear at one point
as "no new threat" had emerged and it was "no longer reasonable
to withhold the underwear", she said.
She cited a seven-day period in which Manning was assessed by psychiatrists
as "no longer at risk" of suicide but was kept under strict
isolation, saying it constituted "unlawful pre-trial punishment".
If convicted on 22 charges, Manning would receive credit for his time behind
bars in Quantico, with his potential sentence reduced by 112 days, Lind said.
But the judge was not ready to call off the trial over Manning's treatment
at the Quantico jail as "the charges are serious in this case", she
said.
WikiLeaks
The 25-year-old private faces a slew of charges, including "aiding the enemy",
for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive US military and
diplomatic documents to Julian Assange's anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.
He was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst near
Baghdad and subsequently charged over the largest leak of restricted documents
in American history.
Manning was sent briefly to a US jail in neighbouring Kuwait, before being
transferred to the Marine Corps jail in Quantico in July 2010.
After nine months in the brig, he was moved in April 2011 to a US Army
prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was allowed to interact with other
detainees as detention conditions were eased.
Possible sentence
If convicted, Manning could spend the rest of his life behind bars, a fact
not lost on his support network.
"These 112 days are still vastly overshadowed by the outrageous 150
years in prison Bradley still faces," it said after the ruling. "112
days is not nearly enough to hold the military accountable for their
actions."
Before the ruling, the defence and prosecution clashed over whether the
court should permit evidence in the trial on Manning's motive in leaking the
classified files.
In leaking secret documents, Manning "selected information that could
not be used to the harm of the United States or any foreign country",
Coombs, the defence lawyer, told the court.
Coombs portrayed his client as a whistle-blower who was trying to inform the
public instead of "aiding the enemy" as he is charged.
Motives irrelevant
But prosecutors told the judge Manning's motives for the leak were irrelevant.
"The accused knew that he was dealing directly or indirectly with an
enemy of the United States," prosecutor Captain Angel Overgaard said.
"He knew that the information would be published on the internet and
was accessible to the enemy," Overgaard said.
Coombs has argued that the case against Manning is virtually unprecedented
as usually US authorities prosecute soldiers or government employees who pass
secrets directly to an adversary - and not those who leak information to a
media outlet or website.
- SAPA
