Washington: The Army private suspected of giving classified US documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks was forced to sleep naked in a military jail at least once this week, the Marine Corps acknowledged on Thursday after the soldier's lawyer complained.
Commanders of the prison near Washington ordered all of Pfc Bradley Manning's clothing, including his boxer shorts, taken from him Wednesday night under provisions of the Navy Corrections Manual, which governs prisoner treatment, said 1st Lt Brian Villiard, a spokesman for the Marine Corps base.
"It was a situationally driven event but to go into detail about it would be inappropriate because it would violate the detainee's privacy," Villiard said.
Col Thomas V Johnson, another spokesman, said the treatment was not punitive.
Manning, a former intelligence analyst, is charged with aiding the enemy and 33 other offenses for allegedly stealing computer files of more than 250,000 confidential State Department cables, classified video of a deadly US helicopter
attack and a raft of Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. The video and thousands of the documents have been published on the WikiLeaks website.
He was arrested in May and brought to Quantico July 29 from a detention facility in Kuwait.
The Navy Corrections Manual permits clothing removal for prisoners who have threatened suicide or made a suicidal gesture, or for strip searches involving suspicion of a crime.
Villiard said Manning hadn't been placed on suicide watch.
The 23-year-old remains in maximum custody and on prevention-of-injury status, designations that keep him confined alone 23 hours a day, and require removal of all clothing except his boxer shorts at night.
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