By DAVID DISHNEAU
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - A military judge has reduced the potential sentence for an Army private accused of sending reams of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.

Col. Denise Lind ruled Tuesday during a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade for Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Lind found that Manning suffered illegal pretrial punishment during nine months in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. She awarded a total of 112 days off any prison sentence Manning gets if he is convicted. Defense attorneys had sought to have the charges against him dismissed.

Manning was confined to a windowless cell 23 hours a day, sometimes with no clothing. Brig officials say it was to keep him from hurting himself or others.

He is charged with aiding the enemy and 21 other offenses. His trial begins March 6.
 

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By DAVID DISHNEAU
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - A military judge says she will rule later Tuesday on a motion to dismiss all charges against an Army private charged with sending reams of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.

Col. Denise Lind's announcement came during a pretrial hearing Tuesday at Fort Meade for Pfc. Bradley Manning.

The 24-year-old former Army intelligence analyst is trying to get the charges against him thrown out, arguing that the military held him in unduly harsh conditions for nine months to punish him after his 2010 arrest.

The Pentagon has said that Manning was a suicide risk and that it was only trying to keep him from hurting himself and others when it confined him to a windowless, 6-by-8-foot cell in the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Virginia, for 23 hours a day.

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