WikiLeaks' Manning still on suicide watch

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QUANTICO, Va., March 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. soldier accused of helping WikiLeaks.org is doing some hard time in a military brig while awaiting trial, his lawyer said.

Attorney David Coombs said Pfc. Bradley Manning had been ordered to sleep in the buff and was being considered a suicide risk without the recommendation of a mental health professional.

"Manning was told he would continue to be kept under the restrictions of prevention of injury watch, that there was nothing he could do to change his maximum-custody status and that the brig commander considered him at risk of self-harm," Coombs said in a blog posting last week.

The Washington Post said Sunday the jailers at the facility in Quantico, Va., maintained that Manning was placed on "prevention of injury watch" after making a remark that he could hang himself with the elastic waistband from his undershorts.

But Coombs said Manning was subsequently seen by a brig psychiatrist who deemed him to be a low suicide risk.

"In particular, the psychiatrist said that Manning's statement about his underwear waistband was in no way prompted by a psychiatric condition,'" Coombs wrote.