From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/bradley-manning-aiding-the-enemy-charge
Defence witness ‘extraordinarily disappointed’ after Col Denise Lind declines to throw out charges against WikiLeaks source
Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian, Thursday 18 July 2013
The judge presiding over the court martial of the WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning has declined to throw out the main charge against him – that he knowingly “aided the enemy” by leaking state secrets that were posted on the internet.
The decision by Colonel Denise Lind, who is sitting as judge and jury over the army private in a courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland, means that Manning continues to face the possibility of life in military custody with no chance of parole. The “aiding the enemy” charge is one of the most severe offences available to military prosecutors, and has led to the accusation that the Obama administration is attempting to put a chill on whistleblowers that could have far-reaching consequences for investigative journalism.
Colonel Morris Davis, one of the key witnesses called by Manning’s defence team in an attempt to have the “aiding the enemy” charge dropped, said he was “extraordinarily disappointed” by the ruling. Davis was director of the US air force’s judicial system from 2007 to 2008 and said he was normally a defender of military justice.
But he said the fact that military prosecutors were pursuing Manning with such a heavy hand had forced him to think again. He pointed to the contrast between the full-blooded prosecution of the US soldier and the outcome of the court martial that flowed from the 2005 Haditha killings in Iraq.
In that incident, 24 unarmed Iraqis including women and children were killed by US marines. In the ensuing prosecutions, six of the marines involved had their cases dropped, a seventh was found not guilty and the only one to be convicted of a single count avoided any time in jail.
“When you think about these different responses, it suggests to me that the military justice system is not working,” Davis said.
Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/bradley-manning-aiding-the-enemy-charge
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