Bradley Manning goes on trial: no remorse from 'snitch' Lamo

ADRIAN LAMO, the "world's most hated hacker", is refusing to express remorse for his betrayal of Bradley Manning, the US Army intelligence officer who goes on trial today accused of leaking thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks and "aiding the enemy".

Lamo, 30, said it would be to his "lasting regret" if Manning, 23, is given a long prison sentence – he faces a maximum of life without parole – but, according to The Guardian, still considers "Manning's wellbeing not as important as the security of our armed forces".

Lamo, a celebrity within the hacking community after being prosecuted for hacking into the New York Times, reported Manning to the military authorities after an email exchange in which Manning, using the internet handle Bradass87, revealed that he had downloaded thousands of US secret documents onto a CD labeled "Lady Gaga", which became WikiLeaks' biggest coup.

Manning, who was based in Baghdad, is accused of being the Bradass87 of that email "chat" and, after a year and a half in military custody in conditions which campaigners describe as torture, is making his first appearance in court today at the army base at Fort Meade in Maryland, near Washington.

Material he is accused of leaking includes the videotape of Iraqi civilians and a news crew being deliberately gunned-down by an US helicopter crew and the secret diplomatic cables credited with sparking the uprisings of the Arab spring. He is a hero to many.

Lamo was denounced as a "snitch" and booed at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York two months after he identified Manning in May 2010, and has said he had to move home for his own safety.

He admits to having been torn by "a great deal of internal conflict" when it was reported that while being held in the Quantico Marine base in Virginia Manning had been treated in ways that amounted to torture.

"I remembered what it was like to be Manning's age – 22 – that was the age I was arrested for what I regarded as crimes of conscience," he tells the Guardian. "I have never considered myself particularly patriotic, but when push came to shove the wellbeing of the nation was of paramount importance to me."

Lamo also says he is not bothered by the hostility from hackers. "I am not a politician running for re-election," he says. "I don't need to be popular among the hacker community and most likely will never be liked in the hacker community."

His "instant messaging" emails with Manning, published by Wired magazine, are the basis of the prosecution case. In one, Bradass87 asks: "If you had free reign (sic) over classified networks for long periods of time, things that belonged in the public domain, what would you do?"

Bradass87 then admits to Lamo that he has been downloading state secrets.

The emails also express his disdain for the poor computer security at his post in Baghdad, describe his wrenching break-up with a boyfriend in Boston and list his miseries as a "super-intelligent, awkwardly effeminate" homosexual struggling to survive a conservative upbringing, a broken family, British schooling and life with "a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger-happy ignorant rednecks as neighbours."

Manning's civilian lawyer, David Coombs, plans to use the same emails as evidence of Manning's emotional and mental distress, highlighting failures in the military chain of command. Prosecutors counter that such evidence is irrelevant to the alleged crimes. ·