Speedy pace brings first week of Manning trial to an early end

The first week of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning’s military trial wrapped up Wednesday, recessing until next week when the court-martial of the Army private will resume with a new roster of witnesses scheduled to take the stand.

Day three of the court proceedings kicked off at Ft. Meade,
Maryland Wednesday morning, but concluded earlier than expected
after the prosecution breezed through a number of witnesses on
the docket. The court adjourned just after 3 p.m. following the
conclusion of testimonies from a handful of Army officers who
served close to Manning during his deployment in Iraq.

Col. Denise Lind, the military judge overseeing the
court-martial, said the court could recess until Monday when the
prosecution will again ask its witnesses to testify as to Private
first class Manning, a 25-year-old Army intelligence analyst
accused of sharing a trove of sensitive military files with the
website WikiLeaks. Manning could be sentenced to spend life in
prison if convicted of the most serious of charges, aiding the
enemy.

The quick pace of this week’s proceedings contrasted sharply with
how the trial has progressed in the months — and years — leading
up to this week. The court-martial began Monday at Ft. Meade
outside of Baltimore, but not before Manning spent more than
1,100 days in pretrial confinement. The trial is scheduled to
continue for another 11 weeks.

Army Specialist Jihrleah Showman was called to testify Wednesday
morning and answered questions about Pfc. Manning’s behavior and
attitude in Iraq. Manning was deployed to Forward Opoerating Base
Hammer outside of Baghdad in October 2009, and prosecutors say he
started harvesting the files later published by WikiLeaks just
weeks later.

Bradley Manning Support Network member Nathan Fuller was one of
the roughly 20 journalists in attendance for day three of the
court-martial, and wrote on Twitter that Showman testified that
the accused WikiLeaks source frequently talked about politics
with his Army colleagues, wanted to debate fellow soldiers about
US policy and came off on the “extreme Democractic side.”
Manning punched Showman in the face during a May 2010 outburst
and was demoted from specialist to private first class as a
result. He was arrested for his role in the intelligence leaking
two days after that demotion, but Fuller said the altercation was
never discussed during Wednesday’s hearing.

Other witnesses called Wednesday included Kyle Balonek and Hondo
Hack, two superiors who testified as to Pfc. Manning’s roel as an
intelligence analyst at FOB Hammer.

“Manning was one of if not the most organized intelligence
analysts he’s ever seen,” Fuller recalled of Hack’s
testimony.

Court is expected to reconvene 9:30 a.m. Monday, June 10, and
continue through August. In an editorial last week, WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange wrote, “The government has prepared for
a good show.”

“The alleged act in respect of which Bradley Manning is
charged is an act of great conscience – the single most important
disclosure of subjugated history, ever,” Assange wrote.

Manning could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of
aiding the enemy, a charge the government says he is guilty of
because al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden requested and received
military files that the soldier supplied to Assange. Manning
admitted to uploading material to WikiLeaks earlier this year.

This article originally appeared on: RT