WikiLeaks suspect's trial could wait until June

The trial of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning could be delayed until June, a US judge said Wednesday, one day after she shortened any possible sentence because of the harsh conditions of the army private's detention.

With prosecutors seeking time to review classified documents, military Judge Colonel Denise Lind gave June 3 as a date to start the trial for Manning, 25, who is accused of one of the biggest data leaks in US history.

But Lind said that the date for the trial's opening arguments -- initially set for March 6 -- would be definitively decided on January 16, at a hearing to be held at the military base in Fort Meade, Maryland.

Nathan Fuller, spokesman for a pro-Manning support group, criticized the potential delay, saying that the private could be in jail for three years from the time of his May 2010 arrest before his trial even gets underway.

"Such a massive delay is ridiculous," Fuller said, referring more specifically to the time from his arrest until the first pre-trial hearing in December 2011.

Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive US documents including internal diplomatic correspondence to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks website, enraging US officials. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

But on Tuesday, Lind reduced the potential sentence by 112 days because of Manning's sometimes "excessive" and illegal conditions in jail, where he was kept in a solitary cell 23 hours a day.

Lind, however, refused a defense request to drop all charges against Manning due to the detention conditions, saying that the government had to ensure he did not commit suicide in light of his mental health history.

Military authorities have faced wide criticism over their treatment of Manning, with the former chief spokesman for the State Department, Philip Crowley, resigning after saying he could not defend the prison conditions.

Civilian defense attorney David Coombs introduced a revised proposal under which the young private would plead guilty to 14 charges that would lead to a total of 20 years in prison, versus the original 22 felony counts.

A hearing in February will consider the plan. But the offer does not include a plea on the most serious charge of "aiding the enemy," which carries life in prison and would still need to come to trial.

In order to illustrate the impact of Manning's leak, a prosecutor asked that the court make public a letter by Osama bin Laden seized during the May 2011 raid on his bunker in which the late Al-Qaeda leader asked for information published by WikiLeaks.

The government also made a request for the court to examine a 2010 issue of the Al-Qaeda-linked magazine Inspire.

Manning's team said witness testimony will show that the leak did not cause the widespread damage claimed by President Barack Obama's administration.

Colonel Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of Guantanamo's military tribunal, would testify that detainee files provided by Manning to WikiLeaks were "not particularly sensitive, and rarely updated," Coombs said.

Denouncing what he called the government's tendency to over-classify documents, Coombs asked that former US diplomat Peter Galbraith be allowed to testify before the court, despite the government's refusal.

Another expert, Yochai Benkler, would testify that WikiLeaks was "not considered at the time as an enemy of the US, but as a legitimate news organization," Coombs said.