By IANS,
London : Bradley Manning, the US Army private suspected of passing on classified documents to whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, is likely to be moved to a different prison after wide international condemnation of his treatment.
Manning will be moved to a Fort Leavenworth military prison in the midwest state of Kansas, the Daily Telegrah quoted a Pentagon official as saying.
At present being held in maximum security in a single-occupancy cell at a Marine base near Washington, Manning is allowed to wear only a suicide-proof smock to bed each night.
According to Jeh Johnson, defence department general counsel, the decision to move Manning did not suggest that the soldier’s treatment at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia, was inappropriate.
Fort Leavenworth jail has better mental health support, he added.
“We have assessed this is in Manning’s best interest to move him at this juncture in the case.”
“All things considered, we concluded that going forward this is the best facility for him.”
Amnesty International has stated that Manning’s current treatment potentially violates the soldier’s human rights.
In March, P.J. Crowley resigned as chief spokesman of the US State Department as he chose to describe the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”.
Manning is suspected of being behind the release of a number of classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, including the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs and the US diplomatic cables.