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<h1 itemprop="name headline ">Bradley Manning denied chance to
make whistleblower defence</h1>
<p itemprop="description" id="stand-first"
class="stand-first-alone" data-component="comp : r2 :
Article : standfirst_cta">Judge rules that Manning will not
be allowed to present evidence about his motives for the
leak – a key plank of his defence</p>
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<div class="contributor-full"> <span itemscope=""
itemprop="author" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span
itemprop="name"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="contributor" rel="author" itemprop="url"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/edpilkington">Ed
Pilkington</a></span></span> in New York </div>
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<li class="publication"> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
itemprop="publisher" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">guardian.co.uk</a>,
<time itemprop="datePublished"
datetime="2013-01-17T18:22GMT" pubdate="">Thursday 17
January 2013 18.22 GMT</time> </li>
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<div id="main-content-picture" itemscope="" itemprop="image"
itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject"> <img
src="cid:part4.03040808.07070409@gmail.com" alt="Bradley
Manning" itemprop="contentUrl representativeOfPage"
height="276" width="460">
<div class="caption" itemprop="caption">Colonel Denise Lind
ruled that general issues of motive were not relevant to
the trial stage of the court martial. Photograph: Patrick
Semansky/AP</div>
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<p><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bradley-manning"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Bradley Manning">Bradley
Manning</a>, the US soldier accused of being behind the
largest leak of state secrets in America's history, has
been denied the chance to make a whistleblower defence in
his upcoming court martial in which he faces possible life
in military custody with no chance of parole.</p>
<p>The judge presiding over Manning's prosecution by the US
government for allegedly transmitting confidential
material to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on WikiLeaks">WikiLeaks</a>
ruled in a pre-trial hearing that Manning will largely be
barred from presenting evidence about his motives in
leaking the documents and videos. In an earlier hearing,
Manning's lead defence lawyer, David Coombs, had argued
that his motive was key to proving that he had no
intention to harm US interests or to pass information to
the enemy.</p>
<p>The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, ruled that general issues
of motive were not relevant to the trial stage of the
court martial, and must be held back until Manning either
entered a plea or was found guilty, at which point it
could be used in mitigation to lessen the sentence. The
ruling is a blow to the defence as it will make it harder
for the soldier's legal team to argue he was acting as a
whistleblower and not as someone who knowingly damaged US
interests at a time of war.</p>
<p>"This is another effort to attack the whistleblower
defence," said Nathan Fuller, a spokesman for the Bradley
Manning support network, after the hearing.</p>
<p>The judge also blocked the defence from presenting
evidence designed to show that WikiLeaks caused little or
no damage to US national security. Coombs has devoted
considerable time and energy trying to extract from US
government agencies their official assessments of the
impact of WikiLeaks around the world, only to find that he
is now prevented from using any of the information he has
obtained.</p>
<p>The 25-year-old intelligence analyst faces 22 charges
relating to the leaking of hundreds of thousands of
classified diplomatic cables, war logs from the Afghan and
Iraq wars, and videos of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-military"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on US military">US
military</a> actions. The most serious charge, "aiding
the enemy", which carries the life sentence, accuses him
of arranging for state secrets to be published via
WikiLeaks on the internet knowing that al-Qaida would have
access to it.</p>
<p>The US government is expected at trial to present
evidence that allegedly shows that Osama bin Laden
personally requested to see some of the WikiLeaks
publications attributed to Manning and that documents were
found on his computer following the US navy Seals raid
that killed him.</p>
<p>In a limited victory for the defence, Coombs and the
defence team will be allowed to talk about the soldier's
motives on two narrow counts: where it can be used to show
that he did not know that his leaks would be seen by
al-Qaida; and as evidence that he consciously selected
certain documents or types of documents in order to ensure
they would not harm the US or benefit any foreign nation.</p>
<p>Lind's ruling means that some of the most impassioned
statements by Manning about why he embarked on the massive
transfer of information to WikiLeaks will now not be heard
at trial. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/">In
the course of a now famous web chat</a> he had with the
hacker-turned-informer Adrian Lamo, Manning wrote :
"information should be free / it belongs in the public
domain / because another state would just take advantage
of the information … try and get some edge / if its out in
the open … it should be a public good."</p>
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