Manning gave US secrets to Laden

Prosecutors said Monday that Bradley Manning put US military secrets into the hands of Osama bin Laden himself, as the Army intelligence analyst went on trial over leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents.
Manning's lawyers countered by arguing that he was a "young, naive but good-intentioned" soldier whose struggle to fit in as a gay man in the military made him feel he "needed to do something to make a difference in this world."
Manning, 25, has admitted turning over the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, pleading guilty earlier this year to charges that could bring 20 years behind bars. But the military pressed ahead with a court-martial on more serious charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.
Prosecutors said they will present evidence that bin Laden requested and obtained from another al-Qaeda member Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.
The material WikiLeaks began publishing in 2010 documented complaints of abuses against Iraqi detainees, a US tally of civilian deaths in Iraq, and America's weak support for the government of Tunisia a disclosure that Manning supporters said helped trigger the Middle Eastern pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring.