Defense attorneys grilled US Army investigators Saturday about the evidence against Bradley Manning and the sexual identity of the intelligence analyst accused of spilling US secrets to WikiLeaks.
In cross-examination, defense attorneys for Manning, who was spending his 24th birthday in court, questioned the witnesses about whether they had come across any evidence that the US Army private had “gender identity disorder.”
The line of questioning appeared to be an apparent bid by Manning’s defense team to establish that he may have been suffering from mental health issues at the time of his arrest over 18 months ago.
Manning is suspected of downloading 260,000 US diplomatic cables, videos of US air strikes and US military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq while serving as a low-ranking intelligence analyst in Iraq, and then providing them to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.