Bradley Manning’s lawyers in WikiLeaks case dispute illicit software charges

US Army Private Bradley Manning’s defence team sought on Monday to cast doubt on some of the charges he faces for passing hundreds of thousands of secret government files to WikiLeaks.

At the start of the second week of Manning’s trial, the court heard that one software programme he is said to have illicitly added to his army computer while stationed in Iraq was used by everyone in the intelligence cell where he worked.

The government’s leading computer forensics expert in the case also conceded that a second programme used by Manning to download hundreds of documents had not been outlawed by military commanders.

Manning has admitted handing diplomatic cables and battlefield reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks but he denies “aiding the enemy”, chiefly al-Qaeda, a charge that could see him jailed for life if convicted.

Chad Madaras, who worked alongside Manning at Forward Operating Base Hammer in eastern Baghdad, sharing the same computer on alternating shifts, testified that an internet chat programme, known as mIRC, was widely and openly used.

“Everybody had it” on their computers, Madaras, who held the rank of sergeant when he left the army in January this year, said at Manning’s court-martial at Fort Meade military base in Maryland.