Short Manning hearing: four government witnesses to testify secretly

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Judge Denise Lind. Courtroom sketch by Clark Stoeckley, Bradley Manning Support Network.

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. May 7, 2013.
PFC Bradley Manning’s pretrial proceedings continued today with a very brief open session, including two short rulings from Judge Denise Lind and more information about tomorrow’s closed session, which will provide a ‘dry run’ for a government witness to divulge classified information in secret.
In the first ruling, Judge Lind granted the government’s request to have ‘John Doe’ – presumed to be a Navy SEAL – testify in an entirely closed session, in an undisclosed location, to protect his identity, which is classified at the Secret level and which the government claims could cause harm to national security if made public. This witness will allegedly testify about documents he retrieved at Osama bin Laden’s compound following the May 1, 2011, raid.
The second ruling mirrored the first, except that it allowed for the secret testimony of three other classified witnesses.
The defense didn’t object to any of these four testifying in closed sessions. They’ll each testify in “light disguise,” which could include facial hair, wigs, and/or prosthetics to obscure their identities but to still allow the defense to observe their facial reactions.
These witnesses, the government says, will largely divulge classified information, but that some portion of their testimony will be unclassified. The court will provide a redacted transcript of these closed sessions for the press and public to document these portions.
Tomorrow, Don Yamamoto, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and current acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, will be the ‘dry run’ witness, testifying in secret to determine if his type of testimony could be summarized, redacted, or referred to with code words so as to keep the courtroom open during those portions of the trial.
We’ll return to open-court sessions at the next pretrial hearing, still scheduled for May 21-24. The May 21 session begins at 9:30 AM ET. Bradley’s court-martial trial is scheduled to begin on June 3, 2013, and run for 12 weeks. By the time it starts, he’ll have been in jail awaiting trial for more than three years.