FORT MEADE, md. — As a military prosecutor held up a knotted bedsheet in court, Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged Friday that he had fashioned a noose and contemplated suicide shortly after his arrest on charges of engineering the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history.

The pretrial testimony appeared to support the military's argument that it was trying to protect the former Army intelligence analyst from harming himself by taking away his clothes, keeping him in strict isolation and shackling him when he was outside his cell.


On Friday, prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein produced a knotted sheet from an evidence box and held it up, displaying a loop in the fabric.


"Yes," the soldier said.




Quantico commanders kept the restrictions in place despite recommendations by brig psychiatrists that they be eased. Among other things, Manning was given scratchy, suicide-prevention bedding, and sometimes all his possessions, including his underwear and eyeglasses, were removed from his cell.


Manning, who was an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010, is accused of sending WikiLeaks more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, classified memos, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, Guantanamo Bay prison records and a 2007 video clip of a U.S. helicopter crew gunning down 11 men who were later found to have included a news photographer.