By Ed Pilkington and Matt Williams in Fort Meade, Guardian.co.uk, Dec 18, 2011

A forensic investigator who examined Bradley Manning's army computers following his arrest discovered thousands of US embassy cables and Guantánamo detainee reports that matched exactly the documents published by WikiLeaks, the soldier's pretrial hearing was told on Sunday.

David Shaver, an agent with the Computer Crime Investigative Unit, provided testimony to the court that is likely to prove central to any court martial of the 24-year-old soldier that might ensue [....]

The secure computer had been configured to have intel-link – described as the "Google of classified information" – as its home page. Shaver said his examination of intel-link logs created on Manning's computer enabled him to reconstruct what searches the soldier had been doing.

He found that between October 2009, when Manning arrived in Iraq, until May 2010 when he was arrested, more than 100 searches for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had been made [....]

For other Guardian coverage of the hearing, published Dec 16-19, 2011, see:

• Bradley Manning hearing told of lax security at military intelligence unit  Controls were so loose at information facility that soldiers watched pirated films on army computers

• WikiLeaks investigators 'feared Bradley Manning had links to foreign agents'

• Bradley Manning hearing: court told of Iraq unit's intelligence security chaos

• Bradley Manning hearing: agents say gunship killing video found in room

• Bradley Manning hearing: court rejects bias claim

• Bradley Manning hearing: defence lawyer turns fire on military accusers