FORT MEADE, Md. — A military prosecutor portrayed Private First Class Bradley Manning on Thursday as an egotist who betrayed the trust of the US government when he leaked vast archives of secret documents to WikiLeaks, lifting a veil on diplomatic and military activities.
As closing arguments began in the high-profile court martial trial, the prosecutor, Major Ashden Fein, focused squarely on the most controversial charge that Manning is facing: that by giving information to WikiLeaks for publication on a website to which the entire world had access, he was guilty of "aiding the enemy."
That charge, under which prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment, has never been brought in a leak case, and the theory behind it could establish a precedent with major implications for investigative journalism in the Internet era. But Fein said it was justified in Manning's case.
He argued that Manning's "wholesale and indiscriminate compromise of hundreds of thousands of classified documents" for release in bulk by WikiLeaks, whom he called "essentially information anarchists," should not be portrayed as an ordinary journalistic leak.
Leaking to "established journalistic enterprises like The New York Times and the Washington Post would be a crime," he said, but, "that is not what happened in this case and under these facts. Private First Class Manning deliberately disclosed classified information to WikiLeaks knowing WikiLeaks would disclose it to the world in exactly the form they would receive it."
He added: "WikiLeaks was merely the platform which Private First Class Manning used to ensure that all of the information was available to the world, including the enemies of the United States."
Manning's defense lawyer, David Coombs, has portrayed him as a well-intentioned and principled — if naïve — protester motivated by a desire to help society better understand the world and who was selective about which databases he released to avoid causing harm.
Earlier Thursday, the judge, Colonel Denise Lind, rejected a defense request that she immediately acquit Manning of five theft-related counts before the closing arguments.
The trial has been unusual because Manning has already confessed to being the source and has pleaded guilty to lesser versions of the charges he faces. As a result, there has never been much doubt about most of the basic facts, and the primary open question has been how his actions should be understood.