Wikileaks trial begins for GI

The court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning begins with prosecutors portraying the Army intelligence analyst as a traitor who put secrets into the hands of Osama bin Laden, while the defense argues he was well-intentioned but naive.

FORT MEADE, Md. — Pfc. Bradley Manning put U.S. military secrets into the hands of Osama bin Laden himself, prosecutors said Monday as the Army intelligence analyst went on trial over leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

Manning’s lawyers countered by arguing that he was a “young, naive but good-intentioned” soldier whose struggle to fit in as a gay man in the military made him feel he “needed to do something to make a difference in this world.”

Manning, 25, has admitted turning over the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, pleading guilty earlier this year to charges that could bring 20 years behind bars. But the military pressed ahead with a court-martial on more serious charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.

In enemy hands

Prosecutors said they will present evidence that bin Laden requested and obtained from another alQaida member Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.

“This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of documents from classified databases and then dumped that information onto the Internet into the hands of the enemy,” prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow said.

Manning’s defense attorney, David Coombs, said Manning struggled to do the right thing as “a humanist,” a word engraved on his custom-made dog tags. As an analyst in Baghdad, Manning had access to hundreds of millions of documents but selectively leaked material, Coombs said. He mentioned an unclassified video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack that mistakenly killed civilians, including a Reuters photographer.

“He believed this information showed how we value human life. He was troubled by that. He believed that if the American public saw it, they too would be troubled,” Coombs said.

Gender struggle

Coombs said Manning struggled privately with gender identity early in his tour of duty, when gays couldn’t openly serve in the military.

“His struggles led him to feel that he needed to do something to make a difference in this world,” Coombs said. “He needed to do something to help improve what he was seeing.”

Later in the day, the court also heard from two Army investigators and Manning’s roommate in Iraq, who testified the soldier was online whenever he was in their quarters.

Manning chose to have his court-martial heard by a judge instead of a jury. It is expected to run all summer.