The attorney of US soldier Private Bradley Manning has described his client as 'Young, naive, but good intentioned' during a brief opening statement. Manning is accused of passing on a quarter of a million secret files to the website WikiLeaks.
The attorney of US soldier Private Bradley Manning has described his client as "Young, naive, but good intentioned" during a brief opening statement.
David Coombs said that Manning arrived in Iraq when he was "22-years young".
He was deployed to Iraq with custom dog tags that said "humanist" on the back, with the hope that he could make the country a safer.
The attorney spoke of a formative event on Christmas Eve in 2009, when an explosively-formed projectile (EFP) missed a US convoy but struck a car with an Iraqi family.
Coombs said Manning could not forget the Iraqi civilians hurt and killed in the attack, and how he "started to struggle".
He said Manning began to select specific information that he believed the public should see, that could not be used against the US, and "would make the world a better place".
The Democratic presidential candidate may also have shown his cards on his choice of running mate.
The US president also shared a post on Twitter accusing Dr Anthony Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.
Fears over an impending second wave of coronavirus dominates Wednesday’s front pages.