An "astonishing" scene has already played out at the just-opened military court hearing about the case against Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who stands accused of giving classified information to WikiLeaks, .
David Coombs, Manning's civilian lawyer has "demanded that the presiding judge 鈥� known in an Article 32 hearing like this as the investigating officer 鈥� take himself off the hearing because he is biased and a stooge of the defense department," The Guardianwrites.
At issue, according to Coombs: The fact that in civilian life, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the investigating officer, is a federal Justice Department investigator. Justice is also investigating Manning.
So the hearing at Fort Meade, Md., has already gone into a recess while Almanza considers "whether he should remove himself from the judge's seat."
NPR's Carrie Johnson previewed the court proceeding . She reported that prosecutors plan to "present evidence in a military court that Manning is responsible for one of the biggest leaks in decades. They'll argue he downloaded national secrets onto what looked like a Lady Gaga CD, and then he passed those documents to WikiLeaks. It's the start of what's known as an Article 32 proceeding, the run-up to a court-martial."
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAxNDQ2NDAxMDEyNzU2NzM2ODA3ZGI1ZA001))
