London: A US military judge has ruled that Bradley Manning, the American soldier accused of handing hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was imprisoned under illegal conditions.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge, however, refused to dismiss charges against him.
Lawyers for Manning argued that he was abused during his nine months at a Marine Corps prison in Virginia and that his mistreatment should lead to the dismissal of the 22 charges against him.
According to the Telegraph, Colonel Lind, agreed that the treatment was "more rigorous than necessary", but ruled that Manning should receive only a 112-day reduction on an eventual prison sentence.
If convicted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, the young soldier could life imprisonment, the paper said.
According to the paper, David Coombs, Manning’s defence attorney, argued earlier in the hearing that his client had carefully selected which documents to leak in order to ensure that the disclosures did not endanger US national security.
Coombs claimed that his client’s selectiveness was proof he had no "evil intent" to harm America and tried to get online chat logs entered into evidence for Manning’s trial, which is due to begin March 6.
(ANI)
First Published: Wednesday, January 09, 2013, 13:38