Obama told Bradley Manning's prison treatment is 'appropriate' as it's revealed he now wears suicide-proof sleep suit



The U.S. Army computer analyst, accused of leaking thousands of confidential memos to the Wikileaks website, is being treated 'appropriately' while in prison, Barack Obama has been told.



President Obama said he has been assured by Pentagon officials that the treatment of Bradley Manning has been ‘meeting our basic standards’.

It comes a day after it was revealed Manning now wears a suicide-proof sleep suit after complaining of the humiliation of being stripped naked each night and is still on 23 hour-a-day lockdown.



Assurances: Obama said he has been told by Pentagon officials that Manning's, left, treatment has been 'appropriate'. The Army Private spends 23 hours in a cell



The Pentagon was responding to a State Department spokesman who called its behaviour towards the alleged whistleblower ‘ridiculous and counter productive and stupid.’

Manning is currently being held at a military base accused of a range of charges, including ‘aiding the enemy’ – which carries the death penalty.

Until now The White House administration has not publicly criticised the Pentagon’s alleged mistreatment.

But the President conceded he asked whether Manning’s conditions were ‘appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.’

Officials have claimed Manning is on suicide watch and is being treated just like all other prisoners in Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia – assertions Manning refuted in a newly published letter.

State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley called Manning's treatment 'ridiculous and counter productive and stupid'. Clinton called the leaks 'an attack on America

Yesterday evening State Department spokesman PJ Crowley was giving a talk to students at MIT University when he was asked about ‘the elephant in the room’ – the treatment of Manning.

He responded by calling the actions of his State Department colleagues ‘ridiculous and counter productive and stupid’ adding ‘none the less Bradley Manning is in the right place’.

Previously his boss, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton called the leaks 'an attack on America' adding 'we are taking aggressive steps.'

Wikileaks: The whistleblower website run by Julian Assange, pictured, published confidential US diplomatic documents allegedly leaked by Manning

President Obama was asked today whether he agreed with Crowley’s damning assessment, but sidestepped the question.

He said: ‘I asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.’

Pentagon officials, he added: ‘assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well.’

He refused to be more specific when pushed on the whether he agreed with the comments, saying he had ‘responded to the substantive issue’.

Twitter users to face probe

Prosecutors can force Twitter to reveal the account holder of the Wikileaks Twitter feed in any potential criminal investigation, a judge has ruled. The Twitter users – including Assange and Manning – argue that the government was on a ‘fishing expedition’ and its request amounted to an unconstitutional violation of their freedom of speech and association. But in a ruling issued Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan said the government's request was reasonable and did nothing to hamper the Twitter users' free speech rights. The Twitter users have said they will take their case to a trial judge to have it overturned. The Stored Communications Act allows prosecutors to obtain certain electronic data without a search warrant or a demonstration of probable cause. Instead, the government must only show that it has a reasonable belief that the records it seeks are relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. Prosecutors said the law is used routinely in criminal investigations, and that the WikiLeaks investigation is no different from any other criminal probe.



Earlier this year Amnesty International wrote to Defence Secretary Robert Gates to ‘express concern’ about Manning’s conditions.

He spends 23 hours a day in a single cell, measuring just 72sq ft.

The human rights organisation said: ‘He has no association or contact with other pre-trial detainees and he is allowed to exercise, alone, for just one hour a day, in a day-room or outside.

‘The restrictions imposed in PFC Manning’s case appear to be unnecessarily harsh and punitive, in view of the fact that he has no history of violence or disciplinary infractions and that he is a pre-trial detainee not yet convicted of any offence’

Manning is being held under Prevention of Injury rules meaning he is ‘deprived of sheets and a separate pillow’.

In a letter published today he refutes allegations that he is not being treated any differently from other prisoners.

He wrote that on January 18 ‘I was stripped of all clothing with the exception of my underwear. My prescription eyeglasses were taken away from me and I was forced to sit in essential blindness.’

He complained that he was treated differently to other prisoners, adding: ‘I have been left to languish under the unduly harsh conditions of MAX Custody and [Prisoner of Interest] Status since my arrival on 29 July 2010.’

Since his arrest in 2010 Manning has been accused of illegally obtaining 250,000 secret US government cables and 380,000 records related to the Iraq war from a military database.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told ABC News: ‘Assertions by liberal bloggers, or network reporters or others that he is being mistreated, or somehow treated differently than others, in isolation, are just not accurate.’



