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The attorney for Pvt. Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst who is accused of downloading thousands of classified State Department documents and making them available them to WikiLeaks, today posts this update on the condition of Manning's incarceration in maximum security at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, VA:
On March 1, 2011, the Quantico Base Commander, Colonel Daniel J. Choike, denied PFC Manning's request to be removed from Prevention of Injury Watch and to have his custody classification reduced from Maximum to Medium Detention-In. The defense filed the following rebuttal to Colonel Choike's response. Colonel Choike will now complete his action on the Article 138 complaint, and then forward the proceedings to the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, for his final review. If Secretary Mabus denies PFC Manning's requested relief, the defense will file a Writ of Habeas Corpus to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
You can read the legal filing here.
Manning remains in solitary confinement and under a "prevention of injury" watch, and is now required to strip naked at night.
From a PBS Frontline blog post today, a tease of an exclusive interview with Manning's dad:
His attorney, David Coombs, told reporters the brig's action followed his client's complaint that the so-called "prevention of injury" restrictions on him were absurd. Manning said if he wanted to harm himself, he could do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear. In an exclusive Frontline interview this week with correspondent Martin Smith, Manning's father, Brian Manning, spoke for the first time about his son's incarceration.
For Boing Boing readers who can't play the video, Brian Manning says:
His clothing is being taken away from him, and he's being humiliated by having to stand at attention in front of people, male or female, who are fully clothed. This is someone who has not gone to trial or been convicted of anything. It's shocking enough that I would come out of our silence as a family and say, now then, you have crossed the line. This is wrong.
The Frontline update also includes a statement from the Department of Defense.
More of the PBS interview with Brian Manning on tonight's edition of NewsHour, and Bradley Manning will be profiled in a special edition of Frontline airing March 29. The network will publish a documentary on Wikileaks in May.
