WikiLeaks’ source Bradley Manning was allowed to handle secret intelligence despite his immediate superiors being aware that he was plagued by “mental instability,” his supervisor said Tuesday.
Manning, now 25, was convicted of espionage last month for passing a trove of secret documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
This week, his defense lawyer is arguing at sentencing hearings before a military judge that he should serve less than the maximum punishment for his offenses.
Sergeant First Class Paul Adkins, who oversaw Manning when he served as a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq, acknowledged once finding the soldier curled up on the floor with a knife at his feet, with the words “I WANT” carved into a chair.
“He was sitting on the floor in the fetal position,” Adkins told the court.
After speaking to Manning at length, the sergeant chose to send Manning back to work in his brigade’s intelligence section, where Manning allegedly punched a female soldier hours later.
Adkins also confirmed writing memos to a military therapist describing Manning as suffering from growing “mental instability,” marked by angry eruptions and possible post-traumatic stress symptoms
But the sergeant chose not to file an official “derogatory” report on the incidents or strip Manning of his security clearance as he felt the young private was needed in his work assessing threats from Shia militants in Iraq, Adkins said.
“I still felt that he was providing valuable information and intelligence in regards to the threat he was assigned to analyze,” he said.
Adkins also did not inform his commanders or mental health counselors about an anguished email Manning sent him about his painful struggle over his sexual identity.
With the subject line “My Problem,” Manning describes his emotional turmoil over his gender, illustrated by an accompanying photograph of himself dressed as a woman with a wig and lipstick.
In the email, Manning says his struggle has damaged relationships with his family and expresses fear he will not be able to make it through his deployment in Iraq.
But Adkins said he chose not to alert his superiors.
“I really didn’t think at the time that having a picture floating around with one of my soldiers in drag was in the best interest of the intel mission,” he said.
At the time, openly gay soldiers were banned from serving in the US military. Manning’s email and photo would have almost certainly resulted in his discharge from the force.
Adkins said he believed the Army was not a good fit for Manning in the long-run but that the soldier would be able to get through this deployment with the help of counseling.
Adkins was later disciplined over his handling of Manning and demoted for failing to convey information deemed crucial to permitting Manning’s deployment and security clearance.
Three years ago, Manning was working as an intelligence analyst near Baghdad when he was arrested ago over the document dump to WikiLeaks.
Before his trial began, Manning admitted handing 700,000 classified documents, — including battlefield logs and diplomatic cables — to the anti-secrecy website founded by Julian Assange.
Manning was cleared of the most serious charge against him, that he had knowingly helped America’s enemies, but he could still face a sentence of up to 90 years for his offenses, including espionage and computer fraud.
Manning has said he passed the documents to WikiLeaks to ignite a public debate and reveal the true face of America’s wars.
Army supervisor knew of Manning's 'mental instability'
