After spending more than eighteen months of pre-trial confinement in a military prison, most of it under “maximum custody,” alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning has finally begun the judicial process in a military court.
In the second day of his (UCMJ) Article 32 pre-trial hearing, it was revealed that the affidavit that served as the basis for his arrest appears to have been based in large part on unconfirmed or erroneous information.
Special Agent Toni Graham, an investigator with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, testified that much of her affidavit was based on information from commanders at Ft. Belvoir who had received intelligence from a confidential informant, whom Wired identifies as convicted hacker Adrian Lamo. Graham testified she relied on this information in asserting that a video of an Army helicopter attack that Manning allegedly gave to WikiLeaks was classified.
The problem, you see, is that the video was not classified.
Quoting Wired:
Graham said she did not verify this was true before submitting an affidavit that was the basis for ordering Manning into confinement that lasted more than a year and a half before this week’s hearing. [...]
Asked by defense attorney Maj. Matthew Kemkes if she was aware that the video was in fact unclassified, Graham responded that she did not know this at the time. She also told the court that the FBI had vouched for the integrity of Lamo, who provided the information that she included in the affidavit that was the basis for placing Manning in pre-trial confinement.
The leak of this “classified” video seems to be a significant, though not the only, basis for seeking an arrest warrant. Rainey Reitman, blogger for bradleymanning.org, writes that
[Graham] did mention that “There were other reasons that I did not provide in the affidavit,” but admitted that the primary ones were those listed in the affidavit itself, especially the release of the Apache helicopter video.
Manning attorney Matthew Kempkes then found fault with another portion of the affidavit, a statement alleging that Manning had been hacking into military and government accounts for over a year. Given that Manning had only been deployed 7 months when the affidavit was filed, Kempkes questioned how Graham could have been certain enough of the allegation to put it in the affidavit. Of Kempkes’ question and the basis of the allegation, Reitman notes:
“I can’t say for sure he was doing it for over a year,” Graham admitted. This information was also something she had gathered by way of the confidential informant’s report.
The legal importance of this, if any, remains to be seen. The government’s rush to judgment and zeal for prosecuting this case, however, appear clear.
Sources:
Wired
bradleymanning.org
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