Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

A US military judge has ordered prosecutors to show they are not withholding evidence from WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning after defense lawyers accused them of hiding documents that could potentially help their client’s case.

The ruling was a victory for Manning, whose defense team has argued for months that prosecutors are dragging their feet on requests for government files that could prove crucial in the trial of the Army private.

Manning, 24, accused of handing over a massive trove of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website, smiled at his attorneys after the judge read out her decision at a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, northeast of Washington.

Judge Denise Lind ruled that prosecutors would have to turn over reports from the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive that assessed the impact of the leaks.

Manning’s lawyers believe the assessments will show the disclosures had no major effect on the country’s national security and did not “aid the enemy” as the government alleges. …

Read on:
www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gat_yPBw1ftIBd0TQIsGoEuPJ5Tg?docId=CNG.e2dddb0ced039a6ca22b2d8bbfecc90d.991

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan reports on the recent developments “Wikileaks” whistleblower case against Bradley Manning, who is accused of 22 charges, including “aiding the enemy.” David House, a close friend to Manning, joins to give an inside look on the case.

The WikiLeaks/Bradley Manning debacle provides us with a startling example of how brutally the US government treats those brave enough to provide even a glimpse of the machinations of its imperial assault on the rest of the world. Manning and the whistleblower web site WikiLeaks are credited with providing information that helped precipitate earthshaking historic events, including the Arab Spring and the recent withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. More notably, Manning and WikiLeaks are also credited with (and criminally accused of) release of the so-called “Collateral Murder” video footage of the slaughter of Reuters reporters and other civilians by the US military in Baghdad. For his alleged role in this “crime,” Manning is enduring one of the most aggressive legal prosecutions in American history.

Manning was held for more than 20 months in pretrial detention (often under brutal conditions) until he finally had the military equivalent of his first day in court, on December 2011, at the massive Fort Meade, Maryland, army installation. For the next seven days, Manning was the subject of a military Article 32 hearing, proceedings that we examine in this article. The outcome of the Article 32 hearing, announced two months later, on February 23, 2012, is that Manning will stand trial for “aiding the enemy,” among other charges, which could put him in prison for the rest of his life and possibly result in a death sentence. Typically, “railroading” a criminal defendant means that the he will be found guilty, regardless of the evidence produced. This appears to be the US government’s plan for Private Manning.

We are lawyers with significant experience in prisoners’ rights and criminal prosecution, but with minimal prior experience with military criminal procedure. We attended several days of the Manning hearings in an effort both to understand what was happening to him and to witness the proceedings in solidarity with Private Manning. The evidence we saw, and learned about, does not even justify keeping Private Manning in custody, much less convicting him at trial. …

Read on: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8297-inside-a-military-court-hearing-how-the

It was an interesting day in court today.

First, Bradley looks very healthy physically and psychologically. It was good to see. He also seems to communicate well with his lawyer, David Coombs. They seem to have a comfortable relationship. At least a dozen times he and David were whispering and Bradley was smiled and softly laughed a handful of times in court.

David did an excellent job today arguing for discovery motions and to depose various key witnesses regarding the classification of documents. The government is fighting Coombs every inch of the way and it feels like the judge really wants to rule against Manning but Coombs is making strong arguments thereby making it hard for her to do so. The government lawyers, on the other hand, do not seem to adept (the best lawyer for the government seems to be the judge!). She did not rule on the key motions today but promises some rulings tomorrow when court begins at 10 AM at Ft. Mead.

Coombs made a very strong case that the prosecutors have totally screwed up discovery beyond repair, completely misunderstanding their obligations under the discovery rules. The government says they have 3 million pages of documents relevant to the trial! The biggest area of battle is over reports the government has done regarding the impact of the documents published by Wikileaks on national security. Coombs talked about public comments by various officials, especially Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton, that there was no significant impact from the publication to demonstrate they were helpful to the defense case. Evidently reports have been done (or partially done) by CIA, DoD, FBI and the State Department; it also sounds like DOJ has done a compilation report (though this is unclear). One claim by the government is the reviews are not finished (especially for the State Dept) but of course, finishing them could take years. The government plans to fight this every step of the way, for example they said if they were ordered to review reports for relevancy and found a paragraph was relevant but the rest of a 100 page document was not, they would release only that paragraph and redact the rest. So, this will continue to be a big area of battle, of course, depending on how the judge rules. My experience as a criminal defense lawyer shows me that when the government plays “hide the ball” they have something to hide that could lose the case for them. So, this discovery battle is critical to the case. If the government can hide the evidence there is no way for there to be a fair trial.

Coombs was directly critical of the government lawyers, repeatedly making the point in various ways that they did not understand their discovery responsibility, essentially saying they were incompetent virtually to their faces. He finally submitted a motion to dismiss all charges, after the government responded to his claims and continued to make inappropriate legal arguments. He compared the situation to backing a cake — and realizing when you only had 15 minutes left in the oven that you forgot the eggs — there is no way to fix it. He presented good arguments, with good legal analysis and with strength and confidence, of course it would be a shocker if the court dismissed the charges, but he is making a strong case.

One interesting tidbit for the day was that the government lawyers were not receiving emails from Coombs and the court, as well as court rulings and defense filings because their email spam filter was blocking them. It turned out that any email mentioning Wikileaks is blocked in their email system and sent to spam. After awhile the government figured it out and now checks their spam box every day by 10 AM to see what they have missed.

On the 27th of February 2012, Wikileaks released the following statement:”LONDON—Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world. …

The letter refers to very serious breaches of the civil and human rights of Mr. Bradley Manning, the young soldier whom the U.S. Army has accused of releasing classified information pertaining to possible US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The open letter to the U.S. government specifically calls on the U.S. government to grant the request of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, to meet privately with Bradley Manning. The US government has so far denied the request of Mr. Mendez, which was prompted by reports that Bradley Manning was imprisoned for an extended period in conditions of solitary confinement, nudity, sleep deprivation, and other psychological abuse.
The U.S. Army has accused Bradley Manning of “aiding the enemy,” a capital offense that is punishable by death. The 23-year old soldier has been imprisoned for 17 months without yet having had his day in court. An initial hearing has recently been scheduled for December 16.

Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden has been turned down at the High Court in London this morning. Assange has 14 days to appeal to the Supreme Court against the ruling if he can show that there are issues at stake of “public importance”. For now his bail conditions are unchanged. £19,000 legal costs have been awarded against him.

Supporters gathered outside the court from early this morning with candles, placards and banners. The media scrum turned up with stepladders.

Assange spoke briefly after the hearing to those gathered outside:

I have not been charged with any crime in any country. Despite this, the European Arrest Warrant is so restrictive that it prevents UK courts from considering the facts of a case, as judges have made clear here today. We will be considering steps in the days ahead. The full judgment will be available on SwedenversusAssange.com No doubt there will be many attempts to try to spin these proceedings as occurred today, but they are really technical. Please go to SwedenversusAssange.com if you want to know what is really going on in this case.

More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America’s controversial prison camp in Cuba.

The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called “worst of the worst”, many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment.

The 759 Guantánamo files, classified “secret”, cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there.

The files depict a system often focused less on containing dangerous terrorists or enemy fighters, than on extracting intelligence. Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim. …

Read on: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-files-lift-lid-prison

Watch Video: www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-bay-files-reprieve-video

Reading the articles and dialogues surrounding the case of Bradley Manning generally leaves me with the feeling that somehow I have become an over-simplistic, humanistic zombie …

The morality of torture, murder and assassination is not situational. If these actions are wrong for the individual members of a society or are to be used as the criteria by which we adjudge a society’s enemies, then this is a standard we must apply to ourselves as well. …

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/05/human-rights-and-the-military/

T.E. Origer is a disability retired USMC combat veteran of America’s War in Vietnam. He attributes many of his political views to his experiences in one of the largest socialist organizations in the country, the United States Marine Corps.

The Guardian
By Amelia Hill and Esther Addley
May 5, 2011

The foreign secretary William Hague is “playing an avoidance game” over the case of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of downloading and leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, according to Ann Clwyd, a Labour MP.

The former human rights envoy to Iraq has also accused the Foreign Office of “continued stonewalling” of Manning’s mother, Susan.

The charges against Manning include “aiding the enemy” – a capital crime.

Manning’s mother wrote to the foreign secretary three weeks ago, asking British consular officials to visit her son in military prison to check on his physical and mental health, which she said was deteriorating.

At the time she wrote her letter, Manning, 23, had been in custody since last May in conditions that provoked widespread criticism of the US military and government. He was being held in solitary confinement and on suicide watch, which required him to be stripped to just a smock at night and checked on repeatedly.

Following sustained protests from human rights campaigners and others over his conditions, Manning has recently been transferred from Quantico, Virginia to a “more open” military facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

But Clwyd has criticised the FCO for not responding to Susan’s letter. A response should, she said, have been received in a week. “They seem to be playing some kind of avoidance game,” she said. …

Read on: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/bradley-manning-case-william-hague

BBC News
April 29, 2011

The US soldier at the centre of the Wikileaks scandal has been cleared to live alongside other inmates at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas.

Pte First Class Bradley Manning had passed lengthy mental and physical assessments, prison officials said.

He was moved to the prison on 20 April, following criticism over his nine month detention at a marine jail in Virginia.

His supporters complained he was confined to a cell for 23 hours a day and forced regularly to undress.

Fort Leavenworth Commandant Lt Col Dawn Hilton said Pte Manning had been cleared to be held as a medium-security prisoner following lengthy assessments for all new inmates.

She said that Pte Manning would be treated like every other prisoner.

“We’re firm but fair. We treat everybody – staff and inmates – with dignity and respect,” she was quoted by the Kansas City Star as saying.

His new cell is 80 sq ft (7.4 sq m) and has a bed, toilet, sink, desk and stool. It is situated in an area housing around 10 other pre-trial inmates, with whom he will be allowed to interact.

He will be able to receive daily visitors, unlimited mail – although he will only be allowed 20 items in his cell at any one time – and three hours of recreation time a day, some of which will be spent outside and in the library.

Jeff Paterson, of the Bradley Manning Support Network, said he was “heartened” that conditions were improving for the soldier. …

Read on: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13235977

AJC
By JOHN MILBURN
The Associated Press

The Army private accused of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks was cleared Thursday to live alongside other inmates at a Kansas military prison, a dramatic change from his previous quarters in a Virginia Marine Corps brig where he spent 23 hours a day alone in his cell.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning passed the lengthy physical and psychiatric evaluation given to new inmates at the Fort Leavenworth prison and received final clearance just before a mid-day media tour of the facility, its commander Lt. Col. Dawn Hilton said.

Manning was transferred there last week from the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., where he had been held for the eight months since his arrest.

At Quantico, Manning had to surrender his clothes at night in favor of a military-issued, suicide-prevention smock. Manning’s attorney and supporters said that was unnecessary and argued his living conditions, including his isolation from other inmates, were inhumane.

Jeff Paterson, a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, said Thursday he was “heartened” by the news that Manning’s conditions were improving.

“In my opinion, there was never an issue of Bradley and suicide. It was Quantico using it as justification for holding him under extreme conditions,” Paterson said. “All of (the treatment) is based on the suicide issue, but it’s not backed up by a single psychiatrist. It’s definitely a very good sign.” …

Read on: www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/wikileaks-suspect-to-be-928584.html

Like many others, the defense first learned of PFC Manning’s move to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by reading that a government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, leaked the information to the Associated Press. The defense was not officially notified of PFC Manning’s pending move until twenty minutes before the Pentagon’s press briefing. … Although the news of the move came as a surprise to the defense, the timing did not.

The defense recently received reliable reports of a private meeting held on 13 January 2011, involving high-level Quantico officials where it was ordered that PFC Manning would remain in maximum custody and under prevention of injury watch indefinitely. The order to keep PFC Manning under these unduly harsh conditions was issued by a senior Quantico official who stated he would not risk anything happening “on his watch.” When challenged by a Brig psychiatrist present at the meeting that there was no mental health justification for the decision, the senior Quantico official issuing the order responded, “We will do whatever we want to do.” …

The facts surrounding PFC Manning’s pretrial confinement at Quantico make it clear that his detention was not “in compliance with legal and regulatory standards in all respects” as maintained at the Pentagon press briefing.

While the defense hopes that the move to Fort Leavenworth will result in the improvement of PFC Manning’s conditions of confinement, it nonetheless intends to pursue redress at the appropriate time for the flagrant violations of his constitutional rights by the Quantico confinement facility.

Read in full:
http:www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/04/why-was-pfc-manning-moved-to-fort.html

Bradley Manning (Private First Class Airman) is the accused whistleblower who anonymously passed thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents on to WikiLeaks. His lawyer David Coombs and friends have expressed concern as to how he is.

Please send messages of support to:
Bradley Manning c/o Courage to Resist. 484 Lake Park Avenue, 41 Oakland CA 94610.

A letter of deep concern: Peace and Justice Groups Ask Military to End Inhumane Treatment of Bradley Manning

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
9999 Joint Staff Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20318-9999

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Army Chief of Staff
1400 Defense Pentagon
Washington DC 20301-1400

Gen. James F. Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps
3000 Marine Corps Pentagon
Washington, DC 20350-3000

Colonel Daniel J. Choike, Base Commander
Marine Corps Base Quantico
3250 Catlin Avenue
Quantico, VA 22134-5000

Dear Adm. Mullen, Gen. Casey, Gen. Amos, Col. Choike,

The undersigned organizations are deeply concerned about the inhumane treatment of Pfc Bradley Manning, who has not been convicted of any crime, and yet has been subjected to six months of solitary confinement with no known end date. It has been reported by his attorney and a visitor that Manning’s mental health is suffering from this cruelty, which serves no known judicial purpose and could result in Manning being found unfit to stand trial. ….

Read the full text this letter here: http://warisacrime.org/manning

… Sincerely,

Backbone Campaign, Bill of Right Defense Committee, CodePink, Courage to Resist, DC Bill of Rights Coalition, DC National Lawyers Guild, Defending Dissent Foundation, Democrats.com, Friends of Human Rights, Jobs for Afghans, Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition, National Accountability Action Network, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Peace Action, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Tackling Torture at the Top – subcommittee of Women Against Military Madness, United for Peace and Justice, Voters for Peace, WarIsALie.org, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, Witness Against Torture, World Can’t Wait

On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video below. The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a ‘hero’. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged.

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on www.collateralmurder.com

Warning: This video contains very disturbing scenes.

For more information, and a longer version of this video, see: www.collateralmurder.com