Congressman Would Support Death Penalty for WikiLeaks Suspect

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., wants WikiLeaker suspect PFC Bradley Manning to be charged with treason for his alleged role in the release of classified U.S. military documents on the controversial Web site. In an interview on a local Michigan radio station, Rogers, a House Intelligence Committee member, surmised that last week’s leak of thousands of field reports from Afghanistan will likely result in the deaths of U.S. soldiers, and pointed out that treason during wartime is a capital offense. “I would support it 100 percent,” Rogers emphasized. Thus far, Manning has been charged with the leak of “Collateral Murder,” the airstrike video that WikiLeaks published in April, and a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik that was also published on the site. He is also charged with illegally obtaining and leaking classified State Department cables, but the AP reports that “it’s not clear from the charges whether the allegedly diverted documents were those published on the WikiLeaks site.” Manning is considered the prime suspect in the leak of the documents posted by the site last week.