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Judge
refuses to drop charge of aiding the enemy against Manning
Army
Private first class Bradley Manning will continue to be tried for
aiding the enemy, a military judge ruled Thursday morning, leaving
open the possibility of life in prison for the admitted source of a
major intelligence leak.
RT,
18
July, 2013
Despite
an attempt from the defense to have the most serious of charges
against Pfc. Manning dropped, Col. Denise Lind ruled from a Ft.
Meade, Maryland courtroom early Thursday that the former Army
intelligence analyst will continue to be tried for aiding the enemy.
Government
prosecutors say Manning, 25, indirectly aided al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula by sharing hundreds of thousands of classified documents
with the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks in late 2009 and early 2010.
In February of this year, Manning admitted to what’s been called
the largest intelligence leak in US history and pleaded guilty to 10
lesser-included offenses in hopes of receiving a lighter sentencing
when his military court-martial concludes later this summer.
When
the prosecution wrapped up their case earlier this month, defense
attorney David Coombs filed motions asking the court to dismiss the
charge of aiding the enemy and another allegation against Manning
that he violated section 1030 of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act when collaborating with WikiLeaks.
“[T]here
is an ‘absence of some evidence which, together with all reasonable
inferences and applicable presumptions, could reasonably tend to
establish every essential element of an offense charged,” Coombs
told the court.
With
Lind’s Thursday morning rejection, however, Manning will continue
to stand trial against both of those counts and around 20 others.
The
defense called 10 witnesses last week in only three day before
resting their case. Next the government will begin its rebuttal case
and soon the sentencing phase of the court-martial will commence. But
although Col. Lind has refused to grant the defense’s request to
drop the most serious of charges, she may elect later in the trial to
find Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy.
Last
week, Coombs called Harvard Law professor Yochai Benkler to the stand
in order to testify about the role of WikiLeaks in twenty-first
century journalism. In the wake of the government portraying
WikiLeaks as an organization that facilitates the efforts of
terrorist groups, Benkler warned that a guilty conviction of aiding
the enemy could have major repercussions in the world of reporting.
Benkler
told Lind that “the cost of finding Pfc. Manning guilty of aiding
the enemy would impose” too great a burden on the “willingness of
people of good conscience but not infinite courage to come forward,”
and “would severely undermine the way in which leak-based
investigative journalism has worked in the tradition of free press in
the United States.”
“[I]f
handing materials over to an organization that can be read by anyone
with an internet connection, means that you are handing [it] over to
the enemy — that essentially means that any leak to a media
organization that can be read by any enemy anywhere in the world,
becomes automatically aiding the enemy,” Benkler said.
“The
government's whole argument seems to be premised on creating
WikiLeaks as a bad organization,” insisted Coombs.
Julian
Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, said in a conference
call to RT last month that “The broad case establishes a precedent
that publishing national security related information about the
United States is espionage.”
Journalist
Alexa O’Brien tweeted from Ft. Meade on Thursday that, if convicted
on all counts, Pfc. Manning could receive a sentence of 154
years-to-life. The lesser-or-included charges he pleaded guilty to
earlier this year would carry a maximum of only 20.
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