Australia closely monitoring Manning prosecution
April 14, 2013 - 12:00PM
Philip Dorling
... An Australian diplomatic cable released to Fairfax Media under freedom of information law shows an Australian embassy staffer attended the pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade Maryland on February 27-28 at which private Manning pleaded guilty to leaking thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks. The Australian embassy has been the only foreign embassy in Washington to regularly attend hearings in the Manning case.
Appearing on the ABC Television Q&A program on February 25, Senator Carr and the US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich dismissed any suggestions the US may wish to prosecute the WikiLeaks publisher as “ludicrous” and “sheer fantasy” ...
Last week trial judge Colonel Denise Lind ruled that a member of the US Navy Seal team that raided Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, will be allowed as a witness in court. The prosecution has foreshadowed that the special force soldier will testify that after shooting Bin Laden in his compound, the raiders found digital files containing WikiLeaks material accessed by the former al-Qaeda leader ...
http://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-closely-monitoring-manning-prosecution-20130414-2ht8r.html
