Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning had reason to believe leaks would hurt U.S., prosecutors say

WASHINGTON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning had reason to believe that leaking U.S. military reports “would cause injury” to the country, federal prosecutors alleged in a newly unsealed court filing on Monday.

In the affidavit submitted to federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, prosecutors said U.S. military reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq included information about the “identity and significance of local supporters of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.”

When U.S. forces raided the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was hiding out, for example, they found a letter that showed the Al Qaeda leader was interested in copies of Pentagon documents that were published on WikiLeaks, the prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, leaked reports on the Afghan war included information on militants’ attacks and designs for improvised explosive devices, as well as details of U.S. and coalition countermeasures against such home-made explosive devices and their limitations.

The prosecution’s affidavit is dated Dec. 21, 2017, but was made public on Monday. It follows the unsealing last week of a U.S. indictment charging Assange with conspiring with Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.

Lawyers for Assange could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday. They have previously said Assange may be at risk for torture and that his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States to face charges.

U.K. police arrested Assange at Washington’s request after Ecuador revoked his seven-year asylum on Thursday. He was dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and is being held in prison while he faces extradition to the United States.

The U.S. indictment, originally issued in secret by an Alexandria, Virginia-based grand jury in March 2018, said that in March 2010 Assange had engaged in a conspiracy to help Manning crack a password for a classified U.S. government network.

In the unsealed affidavit, prosecutors said Manning also had access to other U.S. government databases, including one relating to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a State Department database containing military cables.

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