Bradley Manning's lawyers seek to show torturous holding conditions

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Bradley Manning, the suspected WikiLeaks source, is seeking to call several military psychiatrists to testify that he was held in custodial conditions likened to torture against their professional advice.

Manning's defence lawyers have lodged a motion with the military court in Fort Meade, Maryland requesting the appearance of seven medical and other experts at the next pretrial hearing scheduled for 1 October.

The defence team, led by civilian lawyer David Coombs, is trying to have all 22 charges against Manning thrown out of court on grounds that he was subjected to illegal pretrial treatment in violation of the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Manning is accused of being responsible for the biggest leak of state secrets in US history. Hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world, as well as warlogs from Afghanistan and Iraq, were published by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/bradley-manning-torturous-holding-conditions

[Ken Burch]

1. They should just free the guy.

Do it the day after the election if necessary, but let this end.

Bradley Manning was just this year's Daniel Ellsberg.

[Hydra]

2. Fat chance in kangaroo court

But one of the most disgusting moments in recent history was when we had to watch while they methodically broke an american soldier who dared to expose the truth of what we were doing.

We as a nation seem to be allergic to the truth.

[lordsummerisle]

3. How could he possibly get a fair trial

when the president essentially said he was guilty. He also made a declaration about the Trayvon Martin case.
Obama should just zip it about court cases that haven't been decided yet. As a lawyer I should think he would know better...

[kestrel91316]

4. I hope he prevails. If our government has to resort to torture

of the merely accused, it has already lost, and needs its ass kicked swiftly and succinctly.

[cstanleytech]

5. Why are they trying to get this in now?

Can they not get it in later if he is convicted to get the court to perhaps give him a lesser sentence?

[99th_Monkey]

6. Bradley does not deserve a "reduced sentence"

he deserves to be set free..

The Gov't has already made their point,
that whistle-blowing is no longer fashionable
in DC or the Pentagon, if it ever was.

After what they've done to Manning, I'd
be surprised if we don't have to wait another
few decades, before anyone musters enough
balls to let the "ugly truth" be known again.

About how the USA operates and how far
that is from it's lofty declarations about
"freedom and democracy".

[cstanleytech]

7. Well assuming Manning even did it

(after all he hasnt been convicted) he could have avoided the whole trial thing alltogether and still blown the whistle in the completely legal way he had which is if I recall to contact someone in elected office in congress or the senate or barring that to contact the inspector general.
But as for him being set free, if he is convicted I dont see that happening.
Reduced sentence for time served? Maybe.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. Just like the campaign against Ellsberg 40-some years ago, the campaign

against Manning is a 'demonstration project,' intended to intimidate any putative whistle-blowers by showing them what will happen to them if they have the temerity to speak up.

N.B. Nixon went after Ellsberg not so much b/c of what the Pentagon Papers contained -- they covered only the years up through 1968 -- but because Nixon was afraid of what others still in government might leak about his activities viz the illegal bombing of Cambodia. Without Vietnam\Cambodia, there are no 'plumbers,' no Watergate (and no Nixon resignation