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Defend Bradley
Manning charged for leaking the 'Collateral Murder' video and the 'Afghan War Diary' |
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| In
late May 2010, Private First Class Bradley Manning, an
intelligence analyst with the US Army in Baghdad, was arrested,
suspected of having leaked the 'Collateral Murder' video who
shows US soldiers killing civilians.
On June 6, 2010, he was charged with 2 counts of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including eight criminal offenses and four noncriminal violations of Army regulations. The full charge sheet is available here. If convicted, Manning faces up to 52 years in prison, dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and benefits and unspecified fines. Mr Manning, 22, who is openly gay, is also suspected of leaking more than 90,000 secret military documents to the Wikileaks website exposing civilian deaths in Afghanistan which had been covered up by the military. Mr Manning's family, who live in Pembrokeshire, said he had "done the right thing". Manning was imprisoned in Kuwait awaiting trial and was transferred to the Marine Corps Base Quantico Brig in Quantico, Virginia, USA on July 29. Since his arrest, Bradley Manning has issued no formal public statements. An international movement has emerged to defend him, whether the charges against him are true or not. Sources: Bradley Manning Support Network; Daily Telegraph 30 July 2010 |
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The “Collateral Murder” Video
On April 4, 2010, whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks published a classified video of a US helicopter firing on civilians in New Baghdad in 2007. The video, shows Americans shooting and killing 11 individuals who do not return fire. Two of those killed were Reuters’ employees.
In the video soldiers repeatedly request and are granted permission to open fire, encourage one another and joke about the dead and dying civilians. No charges have been filed against the American soldiers in the Apache helicopter who shot and killed the civilians in the video. |
The Afghan War Diary
On 25 July 2010, WikiLeaks released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details. The documents expose civilian deaths in Afghanistan which had been covered up by the military. |
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