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Bradley Manning Judge Rules 24 Witnesses Will Testify In Secret

24 Witnesses Will Testify In Secret In Bradley Manning Case
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FORT MEADE, MD - JUNE 06: U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning (2nd R) is escorted during his arrival to military court on the first day of a three-day motion hearing June 6, 2012 in Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, has been accused of passing thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks and faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy. Manning returned to court to ask for a dismissal of 10 of the charges. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

FORT MEADE, Md. -- The military judge overseeing the trial of Bradley Manning ruled Tuesday that "there are no alternatives to closure" of the court during the testimony of 24 prosecution witnesses who will discuss classified information.

"The overriding interest of protecting national security information from disclosure outweighs any danger of miscarriage of justice," Col. Denise Lind said in her ruling, issued during the last hearing before Manning's trial begins on June 3.

Although the judge also ordered the military to come up with a plan for releasing redacted versions of transcripts from closed sessions to the public as quickly as possible, it could take weeks or months for government censors to complete that process. The decision marks another level in the secrecy looming over the case.

Lind said she was influenced by the outcome of closed "dry run" testimony by government witness Ambassador Donald Yamamoto on May 7. That testimony apparently got a little wet: Lind said "the spillage of classified information would have resulted had the evidence been presented in open court."

Also on Tuesday, government prosecutors accepted one minor plea from Manning, the Army private who has admitted to leaking sensitive files to WikiLeaks, but proceeded with other charges that could send him to prison for life.

Military prosecutor Ashden Fein said the government would let stand Manning's plea on a modified version of the charge that he leaked a U.S. ambassador to Iceland's sensitive diplomatic cable about that country's gloomy economic situation. The charge could now result in 2 years in prison instead of 10.

Lind issued a ruling stating that she hopes to keep the government's testimony on the alleged damage the leaks caused as narrow as possible during the phase of the trial where she is determining Manning's guilt.

She said she was worried the Manning trial, now scheduled to include about 150 government witnesses and last as many as 12 weeks, "has the potential to devolve into mini-trials regarding international politics in various regions of the world." She said testimony about the context and value of the 250,000 State Department cables Manning leaked should be kept "brief, limited and focused."

Lind's ruling applies only during the merit phase of the trial, meaning Manning and the government's lawyers will likely argue over just how damaging the WikiLeaks revelations really were later, during sentencing.

Manning has admitted to a variety of lesser charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, but the government is moving forward with serious charges of violating the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy that could mean life imprisonment.

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Before You Go

Guantanamo Bay Revelations From WikiLeaks
Abuse Of Prisoners (01 of09)
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As the New York Times reports, Mohammed Qahtani -- a Saudi believed to have been an intended participant in the Sept. 11 attacks -- was subject to coercive questioning and other abuses during his interrogation. The cables describe Qahtani as being leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself. His file says, "Although publicly released records allege detainee was subject to harsh interrogation techniques in the early stages of detention," his confessions "appear to be true and are corroborated in reporting from other sources." (credit:Getty )
Arbitrary Nature Of Prison System (02 of09)
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As Le Monde is reporting, one "low-value" Iranian-Catholic detainee was kept in Guantanamo even after being deemed ready for release -- given his "cooperative nature" and in the interest of "possible financing relations" between Al Qaeda and traffickers. According to the cables, Abdul Majid Muhammed was deemed fit for release in 2002: "The detainee is not affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban. He was involved in drug trafficking. It is unlikely that he represents a risk for the U.S. or its allies." (credit:Getty )
High-Profile Detainee (03 of09)
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An Al Jazeera journalist was reportedly held at Guantanamo Bay for six years partially so he could be interrogated about the network Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese national and Al Jazeera cameraman, was captured in Pakistan in late 2001. Though he was never convicted or even tried of any terrorist ties, al-Hajj was held until 2008 because interrogators wanted to find out more about "the al-Jazeera news network's training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network's acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL," according to the cables. (credit:Getty )
Violent Threats Against Captors (04 of09)
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Some detainees are described as ruthlessly violent in the documents. As the New York Times reports, one detainee said "he would like to tell his friends in Iraq to find the interrogator, slice him up, and make a shwarma (a type of sandwich) out of him, with the interrogator's head sticking out of the end of the shwarma." Another "threatened to kill a U.S. service member by chopping off his head and hands when he gets out," and informed a guard that "he will murder him and drink his blood for lunch. Detainee also stated he would fly planes into houses and prayed that President Bush would die." (credit:Getty )
New Details On Post-9/11 Al Qaeda Whereabouts (05 of09)
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As the Washington Postreports, the documents describe a major gathering of some of Al Qaeda's most senior operatives in early December 2001. They included Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the USS Cole attack; and Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a key facilitator for bin Laden. After returning to Karachi, Mohammed "put together a training program for assassinations and kidnappings as well as pistol and computer training." (credit:AP)
"Nuclear Hellstorm' Threat(06 of09)
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The leaked files indicate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told Guantanamo Bay interrogators that Al Qaeda had hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will unleash a "nuclear hellstorm" if Osama bin Laden is captured or killed. The terror group also planned to make a 9/11 style attack on London's Heathrow airport by crashing a hijacked airliner into one of the terminals, the files showed. (credit:AP)
'Impotence-Promoting' Drugs (07 of09)
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The Washington Post reports Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the USS Cole attack, "received injections to promote impotence" to avoid being distracted by women, and "recommended the injections to others so more time could be spent on the jihad." (credit:Getty )
Prisoner Details And Ranking System (08 of09)
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Gitmo detainees are reportedly assessed "high," "medium" or "low" in terms of their intelligence value, the threat they pose while in detention and the continued threat they might pose to the United States if released. As Reuters reports, most of the 172 remaining prisoners have been rated as a "high risk" of posing a threat to the United States and its allies if released without adequate rehabilitation and supervision. (credit:Getty )
'Terrorist Organizations' (09 of09)
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Gitmo authorities named Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency a "terrorist organization" along with Hamas and other international militant networks, according to leaked documents. As the Associated Press reports, the ISI is part of a list that includes more than 60 international militant networks, as well as Iran's intelligence services, that are "terrorist" entities or associations and say detainees linked to them "may have provided support to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against U.S. and coalition forces." (credit:AP )
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