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US military 'kept Bradley Manning on suicide watch against medical advice' Bradley Manning: pre-trial hearing ends as case goes to military judge
(about 5 hours later)
The defence lawyer for the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning has accused the US military of intentionally keeping the soldier on extreme suicide-prevention restrictions while at Quantico marine brig, even though they knew that he was not a risk of self-harm. The epic courtroom battle between the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning and the US government over his alleged pre-trial punishment has drawn to a close, with the soldier's lawyer accusing the military of treating him like a zoo animal and the prosecution countering that in its view he was entitled to have just seven days removed from any eventual sentence.
Giving his closing arguments to the the judge at Fort Meade in Maryland, David Coombs said that from the very highest military levels down, there had been a resistance to listening to medical advice and a determination to subject Manning to sustained restrictions. The defence is claiming that amounted to unlawful pre-trial punishment, and are calling for all charges against the soldier to be dismissed as a result. The two-week hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, lasted far longer than intended and turned into a dramatic spectacle in which Manning effectively turned his court-martial on its head and put the US military on trial. In his closing argument, the soldier's main civilian lawyer, David Coombs, said that the most amazing element of his nine-month solitary confinement under suicide-prevention restrictions at the marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, was that his spirit had remained unbroken.
Coombs rejected arguments given by prosecution witnesses that the enduring silence that Manning had maintained for much of his nine months in Quantico that this was a sign of his potential suicidal state of mind. "It's clear Manning does the only sane thing, and that's to stop communicating with these people, because when he says anything it's used against him," Coombs said, according to a courtroom report by Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake. "Being watched or viewed almost as a zoo animal for that period of time has to weigh on somebody's psyche," Coombs told the court.
Prosecution lawyers for the US government will give their closing arguments on Tuesday afternoon at the end of an epic court battle that has seen the internal workings of the Marine decision-making machine laid bare. Over 10 days of intense legal proceedings, lasting for up to eight hours every day, a clear picture emerged within the courtroom of how Manning, 24, had been trapped in a Kafkaesque paradox. Whatever he did – or didn't do – was taken by his military captors as proof of his suicidal tendencies.
The hearing has lasted far longer than intended – amid intense testimony about Manning's handling while detained at the Quantico base in Virginia between July 2010 and April 2011. His defence motion calls for all 22 charges against him to be dismissed on grounds that he was subjected to unlawful pre-trial punishment. The court heard from psychiatrists who had reported virtually every week that Manning was in good mental health and no risk to himself. Yet every week they were overruled by military officers at the brig.
Manning has been accused of "aiding the enemy" – in effect al-Qaida – by passing hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He faces possible life in military custody with no chance of parole. Manning was made to strip naked at night and to stand to attention in the nude in front of his military superiors at morning call. For weeks he was held in his 8x6 ft cell for 23 hours and 40 minutes every day.
The US government has been attempting to justify the treatment that was meted out to Manning in Quantico. Throughout the nine months he spent in the brig there, he was held in maximum security status and subjected to harsh restrictions under a "suicide watch" or "prevention of injury" regime designed to protect the soldier against himself. In his summing up, Coombs suggested that the military had been more concerned to protect itself from media criticism than it was about following its own guidelines and treating Manning properly. "They were more concerned with how it would look if something happened to Pfc Manning than they were about whether Pfc Manning was actually at risk. Their approach was: 'Let's not have anything happen on our watch. Let's not let anything happen that's going to make us look bad.'"
In his closing words, Coombs said the most astonishing thing about Manning's time in the Quantico brig was not his suicidal tendencies, but quite the opposite: the fact that he remained sane and did not completely lose his mental composure despite the severe conditions in which he was held. To be kept on suicide-prevention restrictions for nine months, as Manning was, is virtually unheard of in military jails. Coombs added that correct military procedures had suffered a "complete breakdown … All logic by anyone who could affect change for Pfc Manning was checked at the door."
Over 10 days of proceedings, a clear picture emerged of how Manning was trapped in a Kafkaesque paradox in which whatever he did – or didn't do – was taken as proof of his suicidal tendencies. Psychiatrists reported virtually every week that he was in good mental health and no risk to himself, yet every week they were overruled by military officers at the brig. Manning has been charged with "aiding the enemy" – in effect al-Qaida – by passing hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He has effectively admitted passing government information to the site but has not accepted that by doing so he acted as a traitor.
A three-member panel of officers considered Manning's regime every month in a so-called classification and assignment board. The court learned that the form used to make the assessment of his mental condition was filled out in advance of the meetings, making a mockery of the safeguards that they were supposed to uphold. In its closing argument, the US government made some concession to the defence claim that he was subjected to overly rigorous suicide-prevention controls. It conceded that the inmate should have been taken off suicide watch – the most stringent regime possible – more swiftly, in line with the advice from brig psychiatrists.
The court also heard from chief warrant officer Denise Barnes, who was commander of the Quantico brig during part of Manning's captivity there. In her testimony, she blamed the exceptionally long period in which the soldier was held on extreme suicide-prevention restrictions on Manning's own reticence – if he had come forward and explained to her that he was not intending to harm himself instead of remaining silent she would have listened. But the prosecutors only accepted that Manning had been subjected to seven days of unwarranted suicide watch, and called the judge to award a 1:1 reduction in the soldier's eventual sentence. That would mean that Manning would be entitled to just seven days of credit in recognition of what he went through in Quantico, a reduction that would come off a maximum possible sentence of life in custody with no chance of parole.
Yet the court also learned that when Manning did speak out about his conditions, that too was taken as evidence of suicidal risk. When he protested about the absurdity of his situation, observing that if he wanted to commit suicide he could do it using the elastic from his underpants, Barnes took him literally and ordered that he strip naked every night as a precautionary measure. The offer outraged Manning supporters. Nathan Fuller of the Bradley Manning support network, tweeted: "So the U.S. government argues that Bradley Manning should be sentenced to the rest of his life in prison...minus seven days."
"There was never an intent to punish Manning," Barnes testified. Manning supporters were also outraged by a comment made in closing argument by Major Ashden Fein, the chief government prosecutor. "When brig officials saw someone who was not like others, they tried to figure it out to the best of their abilities on a daily basis."
The intelligence analyst's experiences at Quantico provoked an international outcry and prompted the UN rapporteur on torture to denounce it as a form of torture. After the UN began raising the alarm the head of marines' corrections, chief warrant officer Abel Galaviz, was sent to the brig to investigate. In earlier testimony the court, the judge has heard that at the time he transferred government information to WikiLeaks Manning was struggling with deep emotional conflicts including his desire to have gender re-alignment.
He told the court that he had concluded that military corrections policy had been broken on numerous occasions in regard to the inmate. Manning had been kept on suicide watch – the most extreme form of restrictions – longer than he should have been. The burden of proof lies with the US government to show that the maximum security status and suicide-prevention measures it imposed throughout the nine months in Quantico were justified. The unprecedented length of time Manning spent in solitary confinement supposedly because he was a risk to himself prompted the UN rapporteur on torture to denounce it as a form of torture.
"I felt that although he was removed [from suicide watch], it could have been done in a more timely manner than it was," Galaviz said. The judge presiding over Manning's court-martial, Colonel Denise Lind, now has a mountain of transcripts and admitted evidence to wade through before she can issue her ruling on the defence motion. The earliest she is likely to do so would be in the next pre-trial hearing scheduled for 8 January.
Manning's underpants should not have been removed in the circumstances in which they were, Galaviz also testified.