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Does aiding WikiLeaks equal aiding Al Qaeda?

FORT MEADE, Md.—Prosecutors and lawyers for alleged WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning were back in court here Tuesday, sparring over one of the central questions in his case: does giving sensitive government information to the media equate to aiding Al Qaeda?

Manning faces, along with a slew of other charges, a count of aiding the enemy by giving thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. That charge alone can carry a life sentence, or the death penalty, though the government has agreed not to seek death in this instance.

"Publishing information in a newspaper [can] indirectly convey information to the enemy," prosecutor Capt. Angel Overgaard said Tuesday during the pretrial hearing. She said courts in past cases had recognized that such disclosures could constitute aiding the enemy.

However, defense attorney David Coombs said those cases date to the Civil War and involve publishing coded messages, not conveying information evident to everyone on its face.

"Every case that charges Article 104 [aiding the enemy] deals with somebody who had given information directly to the enemy. This case is unprecedented," defens attorney David Coombs said during the session. "There's been no case in the entire history of military jurisprudence that dealt with somebody providing information to a legitimate journalistic organization and having them publish it and that involved dealing with the enemy."

Coombs said the military judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, already rejected a defense motion to throw out the aiding the enemy charge. However, the prosecution and defense were arguing Tuesday about what evidence of Manning's motive may be admissible at trial. Prosecutors contend Manning's motives are irrelevant to his guilty or innocence, but could bear on his sentence.

The defense argued that his motives have some relevance to various issues in the trial, such as whether the information he allegedly gave to WikiLeaks constituted "intelligence" that could benefit Al Qaeda. Coombs indicated the defense may argue that Manning tried to select information to release that he did not believe would result in increased danger to U.S. troops or others.

Lind indicated during the morning session that she plans to rule this afternoon on a defense motion challenging the conditions of Manning's detention for nearly nine months at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. The defense says the conditions included solitary confinement and sometimes stripping Manning of his clothers and were generally more harsh than necessary. The prosecution said the measures were reasonable responses to well-founded fears that Manning might try to commit suicide.

Manning's defense has asked that the charges against him be dismissed. In the alternative, they want any sentence he may received to be reduced by ten times the time he spent at Quantico.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 6:01 P.M.): Here's a more detailed story on the judge's ruling later Tuesday finding "excessive" the military's strict treatment of Manning in a Marine Corps brig.