Delays in WikiLeaks case 'reasonable': US judge
Purchase this article for republication
Buy SPH photos
FORT MEADE, Maryland (AFP) - A US military judge ruled on Tuesday that delays in the trial of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning were "reasonable" and did not justify throwing out the serious charges against him.
"The motion to dismiss the charges is denied," Judge Denise Lind said at a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, north of Washington.
Manning's defence lawyers had argued that his right under the military legal code to a speedy trial within 120 days had been violated and appealed to the court to throw out the case, in which he is accused of passing a trove of secret documents to Julian Assange's anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website.
Manning, 25, a former military intelligence analyst in Iraq, has spent more than a thousand days in detention since his arrest in May 2010. He was not formally charged until Feb 23, 2012.
