UN Investigator Denied Confidential Access to WikiLeaks Whistleblower

Private Bradley Manning

Pentagon officials refused to permit Juan Mendez, a United Nations torture investigator private access to Pte. Bradley Manning, the 23 yr. old soldier who is charged with leaking 720,000 classified state department documents to WikiLeaks. Mendez was only permitted to speak with Manning at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, where Manning is being held, if military officials are present.

Mendez said that a monitored conversation with the accused would violate his nature of his job.

According to the BBC, Mendez said he was prevented from confirming the conditions of Manning's detainment. Reports have said Manning was confined to an isolated cell for up to 23 hours a day, had been "forced to sleep naked or awakened repeatedly." Some of these reports surfaced after Manning's lawyers claimed his clothing was taken after the soldier made sarcastic comments about committing suicide with his under wear.

The conditions of Manning's detainment led to the resignation of P.J. Crowley, a state department spokesperson who called the practices by Pentagon officials "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defense" at a MIT seminar, according to the Huffington Post.

President Obama has been quoted as asking Pentagon officials of the conditions of Manning's arrest, but has declined to confirm more specific details than affirmation that conditions were "appropriate."

Pte. Manning's situation has also draw the attention of some U.K. lawmakers. Manning's status as a dual citizen of Wales has convinced British Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham to comment on the year-long detainment on March 29.

"All people who are detained in custody deserve to be treated in detention according to the highest international standards, and we certainly expect nothing else, nothing less, from the United States," the Guardian reported.