Bradley Manning flipped a table during counseling, defence tells hearing Bradley Manning, the US soldier convicted of leaking a huge trove of state secrets to WikiLeaks, flipped a table and had to be restrained from grabbing his gun during counseling sessions at the time of the leaks, his attorney said on Monday. Manning's main counsel, David Coombs, briefly referred to the incidents as he opened the mitigation stage in the 25-year-old's sentencing hearing. Manning's defence team is expected to ask for leniency from the court martial by arguing he was naive but well-intentioned, drawing on evidence about his mental condition at the time the leaks were made. In pre-trial hearings, Coombs made an issue of Manning's fragile emotional state at the time he made the leaks - as well as his confusion over his gender. The defence team is expected to revisit these topics this week, questioning the welfare provided to Manning by his seniors when he was deployed to work as an intelligence analyst in an isolated base in the Iraqi desert in 2009. Manning was convicted last month of passing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks. He was found guilty of several counts under the Espionage Act, but acquitted of the most serious charge of "aiding the enemy." On Monday, Coombs called Colonel David Miller, who commanded the 4,000 soldiers in Manning's brigade, and asked him if he had been told in December 2009 that Manning had "flipped a table during a counseling session." Miller said that the incident was not relayed to him at that time, but that he would not have necessarily been expected to been told. "Table-flipping by itself could just be an emotional outburst," he said. There are all sorts of things that could be behind it. Asked about another incident, in which, according to Coombs, "another soldier had to restrain PFC Manning from grabbing his weapon during a counseling session," Miller replied: "A soldier grabbing a weapon ... I would expect the average company commander could handle that." The colonel said that the "context" of such incidents, and whether or not they were part of a pattern of behaviour, would determine whether a senior officer would need to respond. Miller said the brigade deployed in late 2009 with a shortage of analysts. Manning admitted months ago to being the source of the leaks, and his defence strategy at his trial, which is taking place on the Forte Meade military base in Maryland, is focused on seeking a significant reduction of his sentence. A sentencing phase of a US court martial functions like a second, truncated trial, at which both defence and prosecution make their case for the appropriate punishment. The prosecution case concluded on Friday. Government witnesses testified about the damage that Manning's leaks damage done to US military and other government departments. Officials from the State Department and Pentagon said the leaks - portions of which were published by newspapers including the Guardian and New York Times - endangered national security, triggered a change in how they handle classified databases and discouraged foreign diplomats from communicating candidly with their US counterparts. In a blow to the government's case, the judge presiding over the court martial, Colonel Denise Lind, said she would only admit evidence of the "chilling effects" of the leaks on US diplomacy if those impacts were observed directly after the information was made public. In another setback for the prosecution, a US counter-intelligence official who led the Pentagon's review into the fallout from the disclosures conceded under cross-examination that no instances were ever found of any individual killed by enemy forces after being named in the Wikileaks releases. Manning leaked 250,000 state department cables, plus a further 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield logs and video footage, and files held on detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, in 2009 and 2010. The defence is expected to call several of witnesses over the next three days. Manning may also take the stand. Lind could hand down the sentence as early as Monday next week. Lind recently reduced Manning's maximum possible sentence she could give Manning, from 136 years to a possible 90 years. Lind granted most elements of a defence motion calling for some of the 20 counts for which Manning has been found guilty to be merged on grounds that they repeat each other. Whatever sentence Manning receives will be reduced by the more than three years because of the time he has already spent in custody since his arrest in May 2010. A further 112 days will be deducted from the sentence as part of a pre-trial ruling in which Lind compensated Manning for the excessively harsh treatment he endured at the Quantico marine base in Virginia between July 2010 and April 2011. Lind began Monday's court proceedings by saying that courthouse security had been tightened after a covertly-shot video of the proceedings, recorded from an overflow room, was leaked on the internet. The judge however said the overwhelming majority of journalists and members of the public had behaved with the "decorum" she said was expected at a military trial. In a separate development on Monday, officials from the Nobel Prize committee said they had received a petition claiming 100,000 signatures that endorses awarding the peace prize to Manning. Peace laureate Mairead Maguire nominated Manning for the prize in June, saying his leaks had helped end the war in Iraq by hastening foreign troop withdrawals and dissuading further American intervention in the Middle East. Nobel committee member Asle Toje, who was given the petition, said the annually awarded $1m Nobel Prizes are "not a popularity contest" and the petition would neither weaken nor strengthen Manning's nomination.