LAST month Pfc. Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to several offenses related to leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, a plea that could land him in jail for 20 years. But Private Manning still faces trial on the most serious charges, including the potential capital offense of aiding the enemy  - though the prosecution is not seeking the death penalty in this case, "only" a life sentence.

Pfc. Bradley Manning on Thursday confessed in open court to providing vast archives of military and diplomatic files to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, saying that he wanted the information to become public "to make the world a better place."

David House, a friend of WikiLeaks alleged source Bradley Manning who first met the young Army private at a hacker space in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has published a detailed account of his interrogation by prosecutors. House doesn t say much in that questioning: He confirms his name and birthdate, and otherwise invokes the fifth amendment against self incrimination to avoid responding. But the questions themselves shed light on an investigation that has otherwise taken place almost entirely in secret, and show that the prosecution may be digging into Bradley Manning s ties to a group of Boston hackers who attended BUILDS, a hackerspace House founded.

An Army private aided al Qaeda by leaking hundreds of thousands of military and other government documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, the military said Thursday. Pfc. Bradley Manning had previously been charged with aiding the enemy among a total of 22 counts, but on Thursday the military identified the enemy Manning's actions aided. Manning and his attorneys are appearing at a hearing at a military courtroom at Fort Meade, near Baltimore, for two days of hearings in the case.

The Bradley Manning case returned to the public eye this week, with the appearance of his friend David House before the federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. probing possible prosecution of WikiLeaks and leader Julian Assange.

The U.S. Army Wednesday notified Pfc. Bradley Manning, a prime suspect in the WikiLeaks case, that he now faces 22 more charges in connection with allegedly downloading secret information from computers in Iraq.

U.S. investigators have been unable to uncover evidence that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange induced an Army private to leak government documents to his website, according to officials familiar with the matter. New findings suggest Pfc. Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst accused of handing over the data to the WikiLeaks website, initiated the theft himself, officials said.

Julian Assange, the flamboyant founder of WikiLeaks, is living on a supporter s 600-acre estate outside London, where he has negotiated $1.7 million in book deals and regularly issues defiant statements about the antisecrecy group s plans.