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The highest-profile trial of an official leaker in a generation got under way on Monday when the US government accused Bradley Manning of betraying his nation to satisfy a craving for notoriety, while the defence presented him as a young, naive humanist who just wanted to make the world a better place.

In two hours of intense opening statements, the courtroom in Fort Meade, Maryland, heard the outlines of a fundamental clash of interpretations about the US soldier's actions. The court was also told of new allegations about the links between Manning and Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website to which Manning is accused of sending the information.

The nation’s military chiefs have told Congress in writing that they oppose or have strong reservations about a controversial bill that would reshape military law by taking sexual-assault cases out of the hands of commanders, setting up a likely clash with lawmakers who are pushing the idea.

In a rare joint appearance, the uniformed leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Senate panel about what the Pentagon has described as an “epidemic” of sex crimes in the ranks. Lawmakers are floating a variety of bills to attack the problem but have not settled on a single approach.

Relatives of 16 Afghan civilians killed by a US soldier during a midnight rampage through two villages have expressed fury over a plea bargain that could see the perpetrator escape execution in return for confessing to the murders. They have called on US military prosecutors handling the trial of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales to imagine loosing their own loved ones to a gunman bent on murder and deaf to pleas of mercy.

"My last request from the world, all the countries, is that as a family of the victims we want our killer to be hanged," said Haji Baran, who lost his brother Mohammad Daud in the massacre, last March. "If someone entered your house and killed the children and old men and women of the family, what would your response be?"

For more than three years, Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning has been in detention awaiting court-martial for the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history. When his trial finally opens Monday, it will be the latest and most high-profile in a series of leak prosecutions brought by the Obama administration.

Manning, a boyish-looking 25, is accused of passing more than 700,000 government and military files to the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks. The material, which was widely disseminated, included videos of airstrikes that killed civilians, sensitive diplomatic cables and military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. Naval Academy is investigating allegations that three members of its football team sexually assaulted a female midshipman at an off-campus house last year, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday, and a lawyer for the woman says she was "ostracized" on campus after she reported it.

The names of the players were not made public and the athletic director deferred comment to a Naval Academy spokesman, who said school leadership were monitoring the investigation but declined further comment.

The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers during one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war has agreed to plead guilty in a deal to avoid the death penalty, his attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is scheduled to enter guilty pleas to charges of premeditated murder June 5 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, said lawyer John Henry Browne. A sentencing-phase trial set for September will determine whether he is sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole. The judge and the commanding general at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where Bales is being held, must approve a plea deal.