Bradley Manning testifys about the nature of his detention
Private first class Bradley Manning, accused perpetrating the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, will take the stand to testify about the conditions in which he was detained following the initial accusation.
Manning was accused of leaking literally hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the public. These included documents that became known as “Cablegate,” the Iraq War documents leak, the Afghan War documents leak, and the notorious July 12 2007 Baghdad airstrike that showed a US military helicopter firing on two a man holding a grenade launcher, two Reuters employees holding cameras, and then on a van that stopped to help the three initial targets, wounding two children and killing their father.
Manning is also accused of being responsible for the Guantanamo Bay files leak, which revealed that 150 innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years without charge. The documents also reveal that some of the prison’s youngest and oldest detainees, which include Mohammed Sadiq, an 89-year-old man, and Naqib Ullah, a 14-year-old boy, suffered from fragile mental and physical conditions. These documents ended up on the notorious “Wikileaks” website but many were also published by national newspapers such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post. Manning was subsequently charged with a number of offenses such as communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source and aiding the enemy.
The Army private is undergoing a trial to determine if he should face a court martial for the release of these documents. He took the stand on Thursday and, for the first time since his arrest in 2010, discussed openly and in great detail about his detention in military facilities following his arrest.
He was given very little information about his charges during his initial detention in Iraq. Then he was taken to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and put in a cell he described as a “cage” that was dark and with no air conditioning. After several weeks Manning began to break down. He reportedly began yelling uncontrollably, screaming, and mumbling incoherently. But he himself describes his memory of that time as hazy and doesn’t even recall making a noose with which to hang himself from his bed sheets.
“I remember thinking I’m going to die stuck here in this cage,” Manning said. “I thought I was going to die in that cage. That’s what I saw – an animal cage.”
He testified that upon being taken to Quantico in Virginia for processing, the Marines at the base conducted a “shark attack” on him, forcing him to fill out paperwork for hours and verbally harassing him the entire time. Manning was apparently put on suicide watch as soon as he arrived in Quantico because of his erratic behavior in Kuwait. He was also kept in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours per day with only a suicide watch guard checking on him every hour.
During Thursday’s hearing he used a diagram made of white tape on the floor of the courtroom to illustrate how small his Quantico cell was. He put on a suicide smock (the thick, heavy jumper he was given to sleep in at night), showed a suicide mattress, and described his daily life of constant restrictions and restraint, even being forced to stand naked during prisoner count because guards had taken his clothes away on the alleged pretext that he might use them to hang himself.
If convicted, Manning faces up to life in prison. His lawyers are attempting to negotiate a plea agreement that would allow him to have a lighter sentence, closer to 15 years in jail.
