Above: David Coombs on left next to Bradley Manning and Defense Team by Clark Stoeckley
Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, uses closing arguments in trial of WikiLeaks suspect to rebut charge of ‘aiding the enemy’
The defense lawyer for Bradley Manning, the US army private who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of secret documents toWikileaks, has ridiculed the US government’s case against him as a “fictional tale” driven by “child’s logic”.
In closing arguments that began at Fort Meade, Maryland, on Friday, Manning’s civilian attorney, David Coombs, attempted to tear apart the prosecution case that was summarized over seven hours on Thursday and which sought to portray Manning as a traitor and fame-seeker.
Coombs said that contrary to the government’s “diatribe”, which claimed that Manning was seeking attention by disclosing the trove of documents to WikiLeaks, he was in fact driven by a feeling of responsibility to the American people and a desire to save lives. In the most emotive scenes, Coombs played to the court three clips from the video that Manning leaked to WikiLeaks of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Bagdhad. The clips showed a group of civilians, including two Reuters correspondents, being strafed from the air.
“Look at this from the standpoint of a young man looking at eight people and what we know now to be the truth – there are two reporters there – standing on a street corner and being shot like fish in a barrel,” Coombs said.
The lawyer rebutted the most serious charge facing the army private – that he “aided the enemy”, by implication al-Qaida – for which he faces possible life in military custody. Drawing on webchats that the soldier had at the time of leaking, Coombs said: “Nowhere does he discuss wanting to help the enemy. He only talks about wanting to make a difference, he wanted the world to change. again, young and naive, but not wanting to help the enemy.”