UN Rapporteur slams US treatment of Bradley Manning

The condemnation by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture of the way alleged WikiLeaks leeker has been treated by US authorities will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the whole "episode" since Manning was first arrested. Yahoo! News reports:

"US authorities' treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Private Bradley Manning was "cruel and degrading," the UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Mendez said Monday.

"I believe Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation he was put in during the eight months he was in Quantico," he told AFP, referring to the US military prison near Washington.

Mendez said that "fortunately" the alleged mistreatment ended when Manning was transferred from Quantico to another prison in Kansas.

"But the explanation I was given for those eight months was not convincing for me," he said, speaking on the sidelines of a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.

Jailed for more than a year and a half before his arraignment last month, Manning, 24, has complained of being placed in solitary confinement, of bullying by guards, and of being subjected to an ultra restrictive regime in Quantico."

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