Excerpt
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The defense got its final say today, for the soldier who made a massive disclosure of secret documents. Now the so-called WikiLeaks case goes to a military judge.
As Army Private 1st Class Bradley Manning arrived at Fort Meade, Md., this morning, a handful of supporters stood by, some wearing T-shirts that said "Truth." Inside, his attorney argued that Manning wanted the world to know the truth of U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 25-year-old intelligence analyst stands accused of the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, releasing more than 700,000 classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Manning was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq, and charged with 21 offenses. Last February, he pleaded guilty to some of the lesser charges, including misuse of classified information. The court-martial on the remaining offenses began June 3. A conviction of the most serious, aiding the enemy, could send him to prison for life.
In their closing arguments yesterday, prosecutors argued that Manning was no naive soldier, but a traitor. The defense insisted today he should be seen as a whistle-blower.
Charlie Savage of The New York Times was in the courtroom for the past two days and joins us now.
No comments:
Post a Comment