[An Nahar] A U.S. military judge is poised to decide Thursday if WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning can be charged with "aiding the enemy" for allegedly leaking classified documents to the website.Manning's lawyers asked the judge at pre-trial hearings this week to dismiss the most serious charge facing their client, arguing the government must drop the count unless it can prove the U.S. Army private had "evil intent" to help al-Qaeda when he allegedly passed files to WikiLeaks.
Otherwise, defense lawyers argue, the government's case implies any soldier could be prosecuted for espionage if they spilled secrets online or discussed sensitive information with news news hounds.
Prosecutors counter that Manning's intent is not at issue and that the government only needed to prove that the intelligence analyst knew al-Qaeda would see the leaked the information on the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks site.
At Wednesday's hearing, Manning's civilian counsel, David Coombs, insisted that under the government's interpretation, a soldier could face the charge simply for telling a Washington Post news hound about high suicide rates, low morale or pervasive post-traumatic stress disorder in his unit without authorization.