BARCELONA: POEMA URGENTE PARA BRADLEY MANNING

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Wikileaks soldier Bradley Manning's treatment degrading and illegal

The 'degrading and inhumane' treatment of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, has been denounced as “illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture”, in a letter signed by more than 250 of America’s leading legal scholars.

Bradley Manning suffered degrading and inhumane treatment, claim 250 American scholars Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

7:00AM BST 11 Apr 2011

Pte Manning, who has been charged on 34 counts, including illegally obtaining 250,000 US government cables and 380,000 records related to the Iraq war, is being held in solitary confinement in a maximum security military prison. He is shackled at all times.

The letter, published in the New York Review of Books, claims his alleged treatment is a violation of the US constitution, specifically the eighth amendment which forbids cruel and unusual punishment and the fifth amendment which prevents punishment without trial.

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a legal adviser in the US justice department until three months ago.

“The administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates,” the letter states. “

Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.”