“There may be no soldier in the history of the Army who displayed such an extreme disregard,” Army Capt. Joe Morrow said of the 25-year-old former junior intelligence analyst in Iraq. “At least 60 years is justified. Pfc. Manning is young. He deserves to spend the majority of his remaining life in prison.”

But Manning’s legal defense team, led by David Coombs, said the government was “only interested in punishment” rather than “the needs of the individual soldier” and urged the judge to hand down a term short enough to permit Manning to make parole and someday return to society.

“The defense requests a sentence that allows him to have a life,” he said.

The judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, said she would begin considering the sentence Tuesday. The maximum she could give Manning is 90 years, without the ability to apply for parole until he has served a third of his term.

In the trial, prosecutors portrayed Manning as having acted as an arm of Al Qaeda by giving the group access to 700,000-plus confidential diplomatic cables, war logs and terrorism detainee assessments when he provided the cache in 2010 to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The defense characterized him as a whistle-blower who wanted the public to see secret material that he believed proved the United States was being untruthful in how it was carrying out two wars and international diplomacy.

The judge acquitted Manning of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, but convicted him on others, including six counts of violating the Espionage Act.

Morrow, in his half-hour presentation, also asked that Manning pay a fine of $100,000 to help defray the costs of assessing the damage he caused with the leaks, which had made their way to Al Qaeda’s leader.

“The information was found in the digital media of Osama bin Laden,” he said.

He noted that Manning filled a “most wanted list” of classified documents sought by WikiLeaks and knew exactly how to circumvent safeguards protecting secret material. “Pfc. Manning was fully aware of the weaknesses in the system, and he took full advantage of those weaknesses,” the prosecutor said.

In asking for 60 years, Morrow told the judge: “This court must send a message. National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.”

And Morrow dismissed contentions from the defense that Manning might not have leaked the material if he had received mental health counseling because he was gay and struggling with a “gender identity disorder.” Morrow pointed out that there are thousands of gay and lesbian military service members who have not betrayed their military oaths.

The Army does not question Manning’s inner struggles over whether to become a woman, Morrow concluded. “Our problem is with what he did.”

Coombs described a completely different Manning.

He said his client was “young, naive, had limited experience and good intentions” when he began leaking the material to spark a debate to end the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He really believed this information could make a difference,” Coombs said. “More importantly, he did not believe this information could be used to harm the United States.”

Further, Coombs charged that the Army let Manning down by not recognizing his emotional problems, getting him therapy and moving him out of the combat area southeast of Baghdad. He said Manning was “crying out for assistance,” yet his commanders did little or nothing to help him. He called it an “utter failure to take action,” implying that had Manning been helped, he never would have leaked the documents.

Coombs concluded by saying he had expected the government to ask for 40 years, not 60. He showed a slide presentation to the judge about the last four decades. There were pictures of the moon landing, the Supreme Court deciding Roe vs. Wade, President Nixon and Watergate. There were pictures of cellphones, the movie “E.T.” and President Clinton on Inauguration Day.

The images, he told the judge, showed how long 40 years is — and how much longer 60 years would be.

Manning has already served three years, Coombs observed, and despite harsh jail conditions — for a while he was held naked in solitary confinement — he said Manning still hoped to turn his life around.

“This is a young man capable of being redeemed,” the defense lawyer said.

Britain defends detaining the partner of Edward Snowden journalist

LONDON – Stung by mounting criticism, the British government Tuesday defended the detention of the partner of an American journalist who helped reveal widespread spying by the U.S. National Security Agency, saying that authorities had a duty to act against someone suspected of possessing “highly sensitive stolen information.”

Britain’s Home Office said the detention of David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, was in line with authorities’ “duty to protect the public and our national security.”

Miranda was questioned for nine hours – the maximum permitted under anti-terrorism laws – at London’s Heathrow Airport on Sunday while in transit from Germany to his native Brazil. His computer and cellphone were seized.

Greenwald has published a series of stories in the Guardian newspaper on NSA surveillance based on documents leaked by contractor Edward Snowden. Greenwald and Miranda live in Rio de Janeiro.

The Brazilian government has demanded an explanation for Miranda’s treatment, and an increasing number of lawmakers and civil liberties activists in Britain have expressed alarm over the authorities’ apparent decision to target spouses and partners of whistle-blowing journalists under the color of combating terrorism.

In a television interview, Miranda said his interrogators did not ask any terrorism-related questions.

“They asked me about the protests here in Brazil. They asked me about my relationship with Glenn. They asked me about my family, my friends,” said Miranda.

He told the Guardian that authorities repeatedly threatened to have him thrown in jail if he refused to cooperate and that they “treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK.” He is preparing to take legal action to recover his confiscated belongings.

Although he does not work for the Guardian, the newspaper paid for Miranda’s flight from Berlin to Rio. In Germany, Miranda had met with filmmaker Laura Poitras, who is working with Greenwald and the Guardian on issues of U.S. spying.

Britain’s Home Office released a statement justifying Miranda’s detention under sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that critics say gives authorities power to detain nearly anyone.

“If the police believe that an individual is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism, then they should act and the law provides them with a framework to do that,” the Home Office said, adding: “Those who oppose this sort of action need to think about what they are condoning.”

But the nation’s official independent reviewer of terrorism legislation cautioned the government against misusing police powers. Yvette Cooper, the opposition Labor Party’s spokeswoman on domestic security, also called on Home Secretary Theresa May to provide a fuller explanation of the action against Miranda.

“Our national security needs to be protected,” Cooper said. “But the independent reviewer has made clear those powers need to be used proportionately and within the law.”

May said she had been briefed that there was “a possibility” Miranda might be detained, but that it was  the police’s decision, not her office’s, to do so.

“If the police believe somebody has in their possession highly sensitive, stolen information which could help terrorists, which could lead to a loss of lives, then it is right that the police act,” May told a television interviewer. “But the law also has safeguards within it.”

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, also revealed Tuesday that British officials had ordered and overseen the destruction of hard drives at the newspaper’s London headquarters containing material leaked by Snowden, the NSA contractor.

Rusbridger wrote that the destruction of the hard drives was a futile and misguided effort in the digital age, since the data were stored elsewhere as well and would remain available to the Guardian. But he lambasted the government for trying to gag reporters.

“The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it,” Rusbridger wrote, adding: “At least reporters now know to stay away from Heathrow transit lounges.”

Oscar Pistorius murder case prosecutors tell of screams, gunshots

PRETORIA, South Africa — On the night South African athlete Oscar Pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend, neighbors allegedly heard the sound of a woman screaming. Silence followed, and then gunshots. And more screams.

That’s the picture prosecutors are painting in the case against Pistorius, who was indicted Monday on charges including premeditated murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp at his Pretoria home early Valentine’s Day. A trial is expected to begin in early March.

Pistorius, a double amputee who used carbon-fiber blades to run in last year’s London Olympics, has said he thought Steenkamp, a reality TV star and law school graduate, was an intruder when he shot her repeatedly through a bathroom door.

His brief but emotional appearance at Pretoria Magistrate’s Court came on what would have been Steenkamp’s 30th birthday.

During a 20-minute wait for proceedings to begin, Pistorius stood with his back to the crush of cameras, hands clasped with his brother Carl and sister Aimee in a quiet prayer. He paused several times to wipe tears from his face.

In the next bench over sat Steenkamp’s close friend Gina Myers and her family, arms around each other’s shoulders.

Pistorius, 26, has also been charged with illegal possession of ammunition, related to unlicensed bullets found during a search of his home by police. He remains free on bail.

The indictment includes a list of 107 witnesses submitted by the prosecution. The names include friends of Steenkamp, ex-girlfriends of Pistorius, and numerous residents from the Silver Woods Country Estate where Pistorius lived.

The prosecution’s charge sheet states that Steenkamp had locked herself in the toilet closet of a bathroom adjacent to the main bedroom in Pistorius’ house at just past 3 a.m. on Feb. 14.

Pistorius “armed himself with a 9-millimeter pistol” and fired four shots through the locked door.

“The deceased was wounded and died on the scene,” the document says. “The cause of death is given in the post-mortem report as multiple gunshot wounds.

“Some of the state witnesses heard a woman scream, followed by moments of silence, then heard gunshots and then more screaming.”

Prosecutors sketched out their case that Pistorius fired bullets into the door to the toilet closet with the intention to kill.

The argument that he thought Steenkamp was an intruder — described in court documents as an “error in persona” — does not change the fact that he was shooting to kill.

“The accused said to witnesses on the scene that he thought she was an intruder. Even then, the accused shot with direct intention to kill a person,” the indictment says.

During a previous hearing, Hilton Botha, the detective originally in charge of the investigation, told the court that police had statements from witnesses who heard an argument in the early hours of Feb. 14.

According to Botha, who has been listed by the prosecution as a witness for the trial, people who lived near Pistorius heard gunshots followed by screams and more gunshots.

If convicted of premeditated murder, Pistorius faces life imprisonment and at least 25 years without parole.

Outside the courtroom Monday, the Myers family, with whom Steenkamp lived in Johannesburg, huddled behind their lawyer Ian Levitt as he read a statement on their behalf.

Since the morning of Feb. 14, the statement said, “not a day has gone by that anyone who ever came into contact with Reeva Steenkamp hasn’t thought about her.”

“Now more than ever, her memory lives on for her friends who cannot forget the lasting effect she had on everyone she met.”

Prison realignment forces LAPD to shift officers to monitor ex-cons

The state’s controversial push to relieve severe prison overcrowding has resulted in the Los Angeles Police Department taking dozens of officers away from regular patrol duties to monitor ex-convicts, according to a department report.

Since state officials implemented the prison measures in late 2011, the LAPD has had 160 to 170 officers assigned full time to units responsible for keeping tabs on thousands of felons who are living in Los Angeles after their release from prison. Prior to the new rules going into effect, the felons would have been supervised by state parole officers.

The report, which was requested by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee and is scheduled to be discussed by the Police Commission on Tuesday, estimated that the department will spend about $18 million of its payroll and equipment budget on those officers in the current fiscal year.

The tally brings into sharp focus the considerable added strain that the state’s so-called prison realignment plan has had on the LAPD, which generally is considered to have too few officers to adequately patrol the sprawling city.

Under the terms of realignment, people convicted of less serious felonies — generally speaking those that were nonviolent and did not have a sexual component — are sentenced to county jail facilities instead of state prisons. Beyond this, however, a second component of the law called for low-level offenders serving time in state prisons to be released at the end of their sentences into the supervision of county probation officers instead of state parole officers.

Nearly 5,400 of those ex-convicts are living in Los Angeles, according to the report. From the outset of the realignment law, LAPD officials warned that the county’s Probation Department did not have nearly enough staff to ensure that such a large population of former prisoners was adhering to the terms of their probation.

“They had realignment thrust on them … and have struggled to build up the capacity to provide effective supervision,” LAPD Assistant Chief Michel Moore said of the county’s Probation Department.

To close the gap, the LAPD formed compliance teams at each of its 21 stations, as well as a larger citywide unit. The teams rate the risk posed by felons living in their area and identify the ones who they believe are most likely to commit new crimes. Officers make unannounced visits to those felons’ homes to ensure that they are actually living there and to check for weapons, drugs and other contraband.

Probation Department officials could not be reached late Monday for comment.

When the department set up the teams, police officials said their requests for financial help from the county had gone unheeded. Eventually, the LAPD received $2.2 million in county funds and expects a similar amount for the current fiscal year, Moore said.

The knowledge that a team of LAPD officers could show up is an important deterrent against felons committing new crimes or violating their probation, Moore said. Without the checks, he believes, crime rates in the city would probably be higher.

Even with the compliance checks, the LAPD has arrested about 3,100 of the felons — 57% of the total in Los Angeles — either on suspicion of committing new crimes or for probation violations, the report said.

Moore said he was hopeful that in the coming year the county Probation Department would increase the number of its officers who are assigned to work with the LAPD teams. Currently, five probation officers are embedded with the LAPD, but the department has asked for about 20.