US Embassy Cables: Obama May Have 'Prejudiced' Bradley Manning Trial

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/24-9

Remarks that 'Manning broke law' could prejudice army private's trial over leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks

US president Barack Obama may have prejudiced the trial of US army private Bradley Manning who is charged with leaking classified US documents to WikiLeaks, by saying at a fundraiser that Manning "broke the law", a leading British MP has warned.

Ann Clywd, chairwoman of the all party parliamentary group on human rights chaired a meeting on Tuesday about the plight of the alleged WikiLeaks source to coincide with Obama's state visit to Britain. She said she found the presidents remarks at a fundraising event in San Francisco last month "an amazing thing for the president of the United States to comment on when the man hasn't stood trial yet".

The fundraising where Obama was challenged about the US government's treatment of Manning was recorded on video. "I can't conduct diplomacy on an open source," Obama told an unidentified questioner. "That's not how … the world works. If I was to release stuff, information that I'm not authorized to release, I'm breaking the law … We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law."

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