[governance] Bradley Manning denied chance to make whistleblower defence

[Riaz K Tayob]

  Bradley Manning denied chance to make whistleblower defence

Judge rules that Manning will not be allowed to present evidence about 
his motives for the leak -- a key plank of his defence

  * <http://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=180444840287&link=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/17/bradley-manning-denied-chance-whistleblower-defence&display=popup&redirect_uri=http://static-serve.appspot.com/static/facebook-share/callback.html&show_error=false>

  *
    Ed Pilkington <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/edpilkington> in
    New York
  * guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Thursday 17 January
    2013 18.22 GMT
  *

Bradley Manning
Colonel Denise Lind ruled that general issues of motive were not 
relevant to the trial stage of the court martial. Photograph: Patrick 
Semansky/AP

Bradley Manning <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bradley-manning>, 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.

The judge presiding over Manning's prosecution by the US government for 
allegedly transmitting confidential material to WikiLeaks 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks> 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.

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.

"This is another effort to attack the whistleblower defence," said 
Nathan Fuller, a spokesman for the Bradley Manning support network, 
after the hearing.

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.

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 US military 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-military> 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.

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.

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.

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. In the course of a now famous 
web chat <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/> 
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."




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