Bradley Manning suffered illegal pretrial punishment: judge

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — A military judge has reduced the potential sentence for an Army private accused of leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website, the Associated Press (AP) and the BBC report.

In a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, Colonel Denise Lind found that Private First Class Bradley Manning endured illegal pretrial punishment while held for nine months in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, and took 112 days off any prison sentence Manning receives, if convicted, according to the AP report. Manning’s attorneys have sought to have the charges dismissed.

The report notes that Manning was kept in a windowless cell 23 hours a day, “sometimes without clothing.” Brig authorities said it was to protect him from self-harm or from hurting others.

Manning, who has offered to take responsibility for the leaks in a pending plea offer, is charged with 22 offences, including aiding the enemy.

His trial is scheduled to begin March 6.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

Keep Reading

The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts

OPINION: Melissa Lantsman’s and Eric Duncan’s refusals to call out their party’s transphobia is a betrayal of the LGBTQ2S+ community

Over 300 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced this year. This doesn’t mean we should panic

OPINION: While it’s important to watch out for threats, not all threats are created equally. Some of these bills will die a natural death

Xtra’s top LGBTQ2S+ stories of the year

The best and brightest—even most bewildering—stories from a back catalogue brimming with insight

Elon Musk and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton are suing Media Matters. Here’s why queer and trans people should care

OPINION: When politicians and the rich leverage the power of the state to quell dissent, we all lose