Guilty Of 19 Charges, Including Espionage, Army PVC Bradley Manning's Sentencing Phase Begins

Gary Sheftick at the Army News Service offers a piece on PFC Bradley Manning.

FORT MEADE, Md., July 31, 2013 - The sentencing phase begins here today in the court-martial trial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was found not guilty yesterday of the most serious charge he faced -- knowingly aiding the enemy -- but was convicted on 19 other specifications related to the misappropriation of hundreds of thousands of intelligence documents he sent to the WikiLeaks organization.

Manning faces a possibility of 136 years of confinement in the sentencing phase, said David Coombs, Manning's defense attorney, speaking outside the courtroom minutes after presiding judge Army Col. Denise Lind read the verdict.

Bradley and his defense team were emotional at the first "not guilty" count, Coombs said, but he added that there would be "no celebrating."

"We won the battle, per se, but the war is going to be tomorrow," Coombs said after yesterday's verdict. "Sentencing is what really matters at the end of the day."

Aiding the enemy held a maximum penalty of life in prison, so Coombs said beating that specification was encouraging to the defense. Manning also was found not guilty of a charge involving the alleged unauthorized release of a video.

Manning pleaded guilty at the beginning of the trial to 10 counts involving the unauthorized release of intelligence information, and was found guilty in his trial of nine other specifications. These include bypassing security mechanisms, adding unauthorized software to the classified network and wrongfully storing classified information.

Army PFC Bradley Manning Convicted Of Espionage And Theft, Acquited Of Aiding The Enemy Charge - Verdict Signals A Stern Warning Against Leaks

 

Kristina Wong at the Washington Times offers a piece on the conviction of Army PFC Bradley Manning.

A military court Tuesday convicted Army Pfc. Bradley Manning of violating the Espionage Act for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, a verdict that legal analysts say likely will have a chilling effect on others considering revealing government secrets.

While Manning, 25, was acquitted of the most serious charge — aiding the enemy, which carried a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole — he still faces up to 136 years in prison when he is sentenced at Fort George G. Meade, Md. The sentencing hearing, which starts Wednesday, is expected to last most of August.

The judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, did not reveal her reasoning in her ruling, but David Schanzer, a former Justice Department official, said the verdict makes clear that the leakers’ intent does not matter in prosecuting them for revealing state secrets.

“If you receive a security clearance, you don’t get the right to decide when, or when it’s not, OK to leak information. The reasons that you leak are irrelevant,” said Mr. Schanzer, associate professor and director of the Triangle Center of Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University. “No individual employee, especially lower-level employees like Bradley Manning, has a really complete picture of what the national security interest is.” 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-verdict-signals-a-stern-warning-ag/?page=all#pagebreak

Military Judge Deliberates Army PVC Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks Trial

David Dishneau at the Associated Press offers a piece on Army PVC Bradley Manning's trial.

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - A military judge is deliberating the fate of an Army private accused of aiding the enemy by engineering a high-volume leak of U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors argue that Pfc. Bradley Manning is a glory-seeking traitor. His lawyers say Manning is a naive whistleblower who was horrified by wartime atrocities but didn't know that the material he leaked would end up in the hands of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

Army Col. Denise Lind began deliberating Friday after nearly two months of conflicting evidence and arguments about the 25-year-old intelligence analyst. A military judge, not a jury, is hearing the case at Manning's request.

Lind said she will give a day's public notice before reconvening the court-martial to announce her findings. The most serious charge is aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence in prison.

You can read the rest of the story at Philly.com via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130727_ap_24d0318bc9504320bb0fe19e4ade9904.html

Prosecution Wraps Up Case In WikiLeaks Court-Martial Of PFC Bradley Manning

Reuters offers a piece on the court-martial of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning.

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND — Court-martial prosecutors wrapped up their case on Tuesday against the soldier charged with providing a trove of secret material to WikiLeaks in the biggest leak of classified files in U.S. history.

Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, faces 21 charges, including espionage, computer fraud and, most seriously, aiding the enemy. Manning could face life in prison without parole if convicted.

Judge Colonel Denise Lind allowed the final prosecution witness, Daniel Lewis, a counterintelligence adviser at the Defense Intelligence Agency, to testify in a closed session. An unclassified summary of his testimony - largely about the value of the material Manning provided to WikiLeaks - will be read into the record.

Lewis was the government's 28th in-person witness since the trial started on June 3. More than 50 written statements from witnesses have also been submitted by prosecutors.

Lind set a court recess from Wednesday to Monday, when “we will proceed with the defense case,” she said.

The defense has listed 46 potential witnesses and the trial is scheduled to run to Aug. 23.

You can read the piece by visiting the Voice of America web site via the below link:

http://www.voanews.com/content/prosecution-manning-wikileaks-court-martial/1693972.html

Note: PFC Bradley Manning appears above in the U.S. Army photo.

Aiding The Enemy: Bradley Manning Prosecution May Call Navy SEAL To Testify About WikiLeaks Damage

Ed Pilkington at the British newspaper the Guardian reports on the Army PFC Bradley Manning court-martial.

The U.S. government is planning to call an American, possibly one of the 22 Navy Seals involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to give evidence at the trial of Bradley Manning about how he discovered digital material later revealed to contain WikiLeaks disclosures, a military court heard on Tuesday.

Prosecutors intend to bring to the witness stand an anonymous man they are calling "John Doe" who would testify how he entered a room in the al-Qaida leader's hideout in Pakistan, grabbed three items of digital media and removed it. Later, four separate files of information were off-loaded with WikiLeaks contents on them.

The testimony would be used, the prosecution said, to show that Bin Laden had actively sought access to the material Manning had passed to WikiLeaks. That in turn would provide supporting evidence for the most serious charge against the soldier – that he had "aided the enemy".

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/26/bradley-manning-prosecution-seal-bin-laden