The US government is seeking to bolster its case against Bradley Manning, the source of the largest leak of state secrets in American history, by presenting the soldier's trial with evidence that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida used the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks and the wider internet as a research and propaganda tool.

As the prosecution approaches the end of its case, government lawyers presented the trial judge, Colonel Denise Lind, with testimony and statements of fact that attempted to underline al-Qaida's familiarity with the web and WikiLeaks specifically. The effort speaks to the most serious "aiding the enemy" charge against Manning in which the prosecution must prove that by passing classified material to WikiLeaks the soldier knowingly gave potentially damaging intelligence to US enemies.

Prosecutors read into the trial record a statement already discussed in court, that reveals that the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden personally asked for WikiLeaks material to be provided to him. Bin Laden wrote a letter to an assistant requesting that he gather the material, and in response was sent battlefield reports from Afghanistan, known as the Afghan warlogs, as well as some of the embassy cables published by WikiLeaks.

Bin Laden's letter and response was found on digital items recovered by the team of US Navy Seals who burst into his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed him in May 2011.

The Bin Laden material was put into the record with no elaboration by prosecutors, though it is clear that the al-Qaida leader's personal interest in WikiLeaks will be used as a star item in its attempt to prove that Manning "aided the enemy", an offence that carries a possible sentence of life in military custody with no chance of parole. To flesh out the point, the prosecution also read to court the testimony of a US military adviser on Islamist militancy who portrayed al-Qaida as an internet- and media-savvy organisation.

Youssef Aboul-Enein said that al-Qaida and its offshoots, including al-Qaida, in the Arabian Peninsula routinely used the media to inspire individuals and enhance fundraising for its missions. "From its inception media perception was important to al-Qaida," he said, adding that acknowledgement of successful attacks on US forces would boost the network's morale and establish its credentials as an effective terrorist organisation.

Similarly, the internet was widely used by both al-Qaida's leaders and members. "Communication through cyberspace was the preferred means of communication" as al-Qaida had no centralised organisational structure and leaders were constantly on the move to evade capture.

The network used the internet for research since at least the early 2000s, drawing on websites sympathetic to its goals, Aboul-Enein said. It would draw information from all publicly accessible websites including those containing information on US government activities, with an emphasis on diplomatic information that could be used to undermine the US and its allies.

As a third piece of evidence relating to al-Qaida's use of the web, WikiLeaks especially, prosecutors referred to a video produced by the American al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn. The video, released in June 2011, contained footage of an Apache helicopter attack on civilians in Baghdad put out by WikiLeaks under the title Collateral Murder.

Speaking in English, Gadahn exhorted al-Qaida supporters to "take advantage of resources available on the internet".

The testimony relating to the Gadahn video was uncontested by the defence, even though the video was released several months after Manning was arrested in Iraq where he was working as an intelligence analyst. He has admitted to transferring a vast stash of US state documents, including the Afghan and Iraq warlogs, the Apache video, detainee files from Guantánamo and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, though he pleads not-guilty to aiding the enemy.

As a final piece of evidence, the prosecution cited Inspire magazine, published by al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula. The magazine gave a list of activities readers could do to help the mujahideen, including information useful for jihad. "Anything from WikiLeaks is useful for archiving," the article said.

Inspire was published in January 2011 – again, several months after Manning was arrested. Its relevance to the prosecution case that the soldier knowingly aided the enemy was not clear, given that it was released after the event, though the disparity in timing went uncontested by the defence.