Iraq — Soldier in Iraq Faces Criminal Charges

From a U.S. Divi­sion Cen­ter News Release BAGHDAD, July 6, 2010 — Crim­i­nal charges under the Uni­form Code of Mil­i­tary Jus­tice were pre­ferred yes­ter­day against a sol­dier assigned to the 10th Moun­tain Division’s 2nd Brigade Com­bat Team at Con­tin­gency Oper­at­ing Sta­tion Ham­mer, Iraq, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed today.

Two charges con­sist­ing of 12 spec­i­fi­ca­tions were pre­ferred against Army Pfc. Bradley E. Man­ning, 22. 

The first charge, under Arti­cle 92 of the UCMJ, is for vio­lat­ing a law­ful Army reg­u­la­tion by trans­fer­ring clas­si­fied data onto his per­son­al com­put­er and adding unau­tho­rized soft­ware to a clas­si­fied com­put­er system. 

The sec­ond charge includes eight spec­i­fi­ca­tions under Arti­cle 134 of the UCMJ, incor­po­rat­ing vio­la­tions of the U.S. Crim­i­nal Code: 

— One spec­i­fi­ca­tion of vio­lat­ing U.S. Code Title 18, Sec­tion 793, for com­mu­ni­cat­ing, trans­mit­ting and deliv­er­ing nation­al defense infor­ma­tion to an unau­tho­rized source; 

— Three spec­i­fi­ca­tions of vio­lat­ing U.S. Code Title 18, Sec­tion 1030(a)(1), for dis­clos­ing clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the nation­al defense with rea­son to believe that the infor­ma­tion could cause injury to the Unit­ed States; and 

— Four spec­i­fi­ca­tions of vio­lat­ing Unit­ed States Code Title 18, Sec­tion 1030(a)(2), for exceed­ing autho­rized com­put­er access to obtain clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion from a U.S. depart­ment or agency. 

All of the charges relate to inci­dents that occurred between Novem­ber 2009 and May 2010, and the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion remains open, offi­cials said. 

Offi­cials empha­sized that pre­fer­ral of charges rep­re­sents an accu­sa­tion only, and that Man­ning is pre­sumed inno­cent until and unless he’s proven guilty. The case will be processed in accor­dance with nor­mal pro­ce­dures, offi­cials added. 

The com­mand will appoint an offi­cer to pre­side over an Arti­cle 32 inves­ti­ga­tion, which is sim­i­lar to a civil­ian grand jury hear­ing. The inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer will make find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions that the chain of com­mand con­sid­ers in deter­min­ing whether to refer the case to tri­al by court-martial. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)