US Army Private Bradley Manning faces trial more than three years after his arrest for transmitting 700,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks. The US is pursuing further accusations of aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.
13:11 GMT: Around 350 aimed to secure one of the 70
available spaces to observe the trial.
13:00 GMT: Proceedings begin at the trial of Private
Bradley Manning. ‘Truth’ T-shirts are reportedly banned from the
courtroom, with their wearers being directed to turn them inside
out, as influencing judicial opinion is not allowed.
13:00 GMT: RT starts live updates from the courtroom. RT’s
own correspondent, Andrew Blake, is reporting live from Fort
Meade.
Manning, 25, has already pleaded guilty to charges of leaking
information to the anti-secrecy website, which alone could
confine him to prison for 20 years. However, it is a small
fraction of the further 21 counts the prosecutors are seeking to
convict him on, one of which includes allegedly aiding of the
enemy, which he did not believe he was doing.
The court-martial trial is being held at Fort Meade military base
in Baltimore. Military tribunals are frequently held in extremely
secretive conditions. He has reportedly opted to have it heard by
a judge instead of a jury and the final verdict could take as
long as three months to be announced.
Manning stated at a pre-trial hearing in February that the scenes
he witnessed left him deeply unsettled.
“The most alarming aspect of the video” was the
“seemingly delightful bloodlust the aerial weapons team
happened to have,” he said, suggesting the soldiers were akin
to children “torturing ants with a magnifying glass.”
Worldwide demonstrations in support of Manning took place over
the weekend at Fort Meade, Toronto, Berlin, Paris and even South
Korea’s Seoul.
This article originally appeared on: RT