Lawyer: Army Private's Quip Let to Clothing Loss

WASHINGTON (AP) — The lawyer for a jailed Army private suspected of leaking classified U.S. documents to the WikiLeaks website says his client was stripped of all his clothing at night because he had made sarcastic comments about using underwear to commit suicide.

Pfc. Bradley Manning's civilian lawyer, David Coombs, said in a blog post Saturday that his client's clothing was taken away at nights after Manning remarked that if he wanted to harm himself he could do that with "the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops."

Marine Corps officials had cited privacy rules Friday in not disclosing more about the Wednesday order that left Manning to sleep naked in his jail cell at the Quantico, Va. brig. His attorney has called the treatment degrading.