A hearing at a United States military base has recommended that Private Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents, should be sent for court martial.
It concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Private Manning has committed the offences.
The documents were published on the Wikileaks website. Supporters of Manning say they are not surprised by the recommendation.
Private Manning, 24, appeared for a pre-trial hearing in December, when defence lawyers argued that he was struggling with personal issues, including his gender identity.
Private Manning was arrested in May 2010 and held at Quantico, in Virginia.
On 20 April 2011, he was moved to Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas.
The documents published by Wikileaks amounted to the biggest leak of classified information in US history.
