FORT MEADE, Maryland: A US military psychiatrist testified on Wednesday that the harsh detention of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning was "senseless" and that commanders totally ignored his advice to lift tough suicide watch measures.
Captain William Hoctor, a Navy doctor who evaluated Manning about every week during his confinement at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, told the court the army private showed no sign of being suicidal.
"It seemed really senseless," Hoctor said of a "prevention of injury" status imposed on Manning.
Manning, charged with passing a trove of secret government files to the WikiLeaks website, is asking a judge to dismiss his case because of alleged illegal punishment he suffered during his pre-trial detention at Quantico.
In a military career spanning more than two decades, Hoctor said he had never faced a situation in which his medical advice at a prison was totally ignored as it was at Quantico.
"I never really experienced anything like this," he said.
A second psychiatrist also advised the brig leadership to lift the "prevention of injury" status, he said.
After Manning was transferred to Quantico from a US military cell in Kuwait in July 2010, Hoctor soon advised military authorities to remove a "suicide risk" assessment and then to rescind a "prevention of injury" status, he said.
But the brig commanders chose not to follow his recommendation, isolating Manning in a solitary cell for more than 23 hours a day and forcing him to strip every night.
Hoctor said he had a heated meeting with one of the officers running the brig, Colonel Robert Oltman, who told him that Manning would be kept under "prevention of injury" status indefinitely.
Oltman also indicated he had instructions from senior officers to follow the tough approach to avoid any risk of Manning committing suicide.
But Oltman testified earlier that the doctor's view was "only one data point" and that there were other factors to take into account, including weekly reports from prison guards.
"I wasn't going to base a decision on his input alone," Oltman said under questioning by Manning's defence lawyer, David Coombs.
Oltman also said he had concerns about the doctor's credibility as Hoctor allegedly had concluded another detainee did not pose a suicide risk but the man ended up killing himself.
Manning is expected to take the stand for the first time this week during the latest round of pre-trial hearings that began Tuesday at Fort Meade, Maryland, north of the US capital.
Manning, 24, who sat in the courtroom taking copious notes during the proceedings, could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of aiding the enemy with the massive leak, which embarrassed the US government and rankled Washington's allies.
In the worst security breach in US history, the leaks included hundreds of thousands of military intelligence logs from Iraq and Afghanistan and roughly 25,000 sensitive diplomatic cables.
Manning's lawyer appeared to be constructing an argument that officers imposed strict solitary confinement on the Army private under pressure from top brass at the Pentagon and against the advice of medical professionals and the military's own regulations.
On Tuesday, the former commander of the brig, retired Marine colonel Daniel Choike, said Manning was placed on suicide watch partly because he was engaged in "erratic dancing" and was licking the bars in his cell.
But Hoctor scoffed at the incidents. He said Manning was licking the cell bars when he was sleepwalking and as for dancing, he said: "I mean, so what?"
"It would be within the realm of normal behaviour," he added.
The defence also honed in on the role of a three-star Marine officer at the Pentagon, Lieutenant General George Flynn, who took a keen interest in the high-profile case, according to emails cited by the defense.
Flynn made clear in emails that he wanted to be kept informed and stressed that officers must ensure that Manning did not commit suicide while detained at the Marine Corps brig, Oltman said.
A UN rapporteur on torture concluded Manning was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment at the Quantico brig.
After his detention from July 2010 to April 2011 at Quantico, Manning was later transferred to a prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he faces less strict conditions.
- AFP/xq
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