(CN) - In justifying close restrictions on WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning pending trial, the military has said it found them necessary after a man facing court-martial committed suicide in the brig. Courthouse News offers an exclusive look at that case, based on internal Marine files.
Col. Daniel Choike's cover letter for the June 2010 report, which Courthouse News acquired under the Freedom of Information Act, endorses the findings that late Capt. Michael Webb died by his own hand while incarcerated at the Marine Correctional Facility at Quantico. Webb, 46, had been awaiting court-martial proceedings on charges of defrauding the government.
Shortly before his Jan. 31, 2010, death, Webb told apparent beneficiaries to his insurance policy in a letter that he hoped the proceeds would keep them from having to live "hand to mouth," military investigators found.
Col. Choike, who served as the commander of the Quantico brig, determined that Webb died "in the line of duty and not due to his own misconduct."
"My heartfelt sympathy goes out to the family and friends of Capt. Webb whose death has brought sorrow to us all," his cover letter concludes.
Although the Washington Post and some websites reported briefly of Webb's passing, the story first received widespread attention during the unrelated court-martial of Pfc. Manning, the admitted source of the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. history.
Manning spent nine months inside a maximum-security cell of Quantico brig starting in July 2010.
Shortly before his transfer there, investigators labeled Manning as suicidal because he had made nooses in Kuwait.
Quantico placed Manning in an 8-by-6 cell under prevention of injury watch and occasionally suicide risk status, where he faced intense monitoring and other conditions that a United Nations investigator called "cruel, inhuman and degrading."
In January 2012, a military judge ruled that Manning's harsh confinement constituted "unlawful pre-trial punishment," but she concluded that it represented a good-faith effort from Quantico staff to prevent the WikiLeaks source from harming himself - given the brig's recent experience with Webb.
Since then, Manning has been held at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., which determined he could be placed with the general population.
Though the 25-page Webb investigation broadly blacks out names under the Privacy Act, the unredacted portion sheds light on that finding.
Webb joined the Marine Corps in 2005 and rose to the rank of captain roughly two years later. A Quantico spokeswoman said he was a communications officer for the Casual Platoon, Service Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion.
He received two awards around the time of this promotion: the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal.
Two years later, he came under suspicion of defrauding the government out of pay, allowances and benefits.
According to the investigation, Webb was arrested after missing the date of his voluntary surrender and was found to have previously bought a plane ticket from his Jacksonville, Fla., home to Las Vegas, Nev.
Deemed a flight risk, Webb's guards inspected his cell "once every 15 minutes during the awake hours and once every 30 minutes during the sleeping hours at irregular intervals," the investigation states.
Guards told the investigator that they memorialized these check-ups on forms that they posted outside the cell, typically four times every hour.
This monitoring intensified three days before his suicide, when Webb came under investigation for attempting to improperly mail out more than a dozen letters.
