Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, left, is escorted into a courthouse for his court-martial at Fort Mead, Md, Thursday, July 25, 2013. Manning is charged with indirectly aiding the enemy by sending troves of classified material to WIkiLeaks. He faces up to life in prision.FORT MEADE, Md. – U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was a traitor with one mission as an intelligence analyst in Iraq: to find and reveal government secrets to a group of anarchists and bask in the glory as a whistleblower, a prosecutor said Thursday during closing arguments.
Maj. Ashden Fein said Manning betrayed his country’s trust and spilled classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, knowing the material would be seen by al-Qaida. Even Osama bin Laden had some of the digital files at his compound when he was killed, the prosecutor said.
“WikiLeaks was merely the platform which Pfc. Manning used to ensure all the information was available for the world, including enemies of the United States,” Fein said.
Manning is charged with 21 offenses, but the most serious is aiding the enemy, which carries a possible sentence of up to life in prison. His defense attorneys have argued there was no evidence he knew al-Qaida specifically looked at WikiLeaks, a key point prosecutors must prove to win a conviction on that charge.
Defense attorneys will present their closing arguments Friday.