Army private charged on suspicion of leaking documents to WikiLeaks

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Army private suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive and classified documents to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group was charged March 2 with aiding the enemy, a crime that can bring the death penalty or life in prison.

The Army filed 22 new charges against Pvt. 1st Class Bradley E. Manning, including causing intelligence information to be published on the Internet. The charges don't specify which documents, but the charges involve the suspected distribution by the military analyst of more than 250,000 confidential State Department cables as well as a raft of Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. Thousands of the documents have been published on the WikiLeaks website.

Although aiding the enemy is a capital offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Army prosecutors have notified the Manning defense team that it will not recommend the death penalty to the two-star general who is in charge of proceeding with legal action.

The Army has not ruled out charging others in the case, pending the results of an ongoing review. Army leaders have suggested that there may have been supervisory lapses that allowed the breach to occur.

The release of the State Department cables was denounced by U.S. officials, saying it put countless lives as risk, revealing the identities of people working secretly with the U.S. It also sent shudders through the diplomatic community, as the cables revealed often embarrassing descriptions and assessments of foreign leaders, potentially jeopardizing U.S. relations with its allies.

While thousands of the cables have been released, the bulk of those downloaded have not been made public.

Manning was charged in July with mishandling and leaking classified data and putting national security at risk in connection with the release of a military video of an attack on unarmed men in Iraq.

Army officials said the new charges accuse Manning of using unauthorized software on government computers to extract classified information, illegally download it and transmit the data for public release by what the Army termed "the enemy."

The charges follow seven months of Army investigation, The Associated Press reports.