Accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning held in solitary confinement
Army Private Bradley Manning, accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has been held in solitary confinement by the military for more than seven months.
Manning, who has not been convicted of a crime, has been imprisoned since May at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia. Prior to that the 22-year-old intelligence specialist was held in a military prison in Kuwait, where he was also kept in solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement is widely acknowledged to be a form of torture. Severe isolation leads to psychological trauma, despair and mental illness. While routinely employed in the US prison system, the treatment is banned as a cruel and unusual punishment in many countries.
By all indications, the Obama administration and the military are subjecting Manning to this treatment in the hope that, after being incapacitated and made pliant, he will accept a plea deal in exchange for implicating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange so that the US can prosecute the latter on conspiracy charges.
On Friday, the British Independent reported that the US Justice Department has offered Manning a plea bargain, which would involve him being transferred to civilian custody, in return for him naming Assange as an active collaborator in obtaining the leaked files.
Manning was detained after WikiLeaks released the “Collateral Murder” video last April. The video contains footage shot by a US attack helicopter of a massacre of civilians and journalists carried out in Baghdad in 2007. The Army private is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents and other material that show the massive scale of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, expose corruption and lies, and document war crimes.