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WASHINGTON — Julian Assange, the flamboyant founder of WikiLeaks, is living on a supporter’s 600-acre estate outside London, where he has negotiated $1.7 million in book deals and regularly issues defiant statements about the antisecrecy group’s plans. 

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The Lede Blog: Lawyer Describes Solitary Confinement of Suspected WikiLeaks Source (December 21, 2010) 

Times Topics: WikiLeaks | Bradley Manning

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Associated Press

Bradley Manning 

Meanwhile, the young soldier accused of leaking the secret documents that brought WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange to fame and notoriety is locked in a tiny cell at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia. The soldier, Pfc. Bradley Manning, who turned 23 last month in the military prison, is accused of the biggest leak of classified documents in American history. He awaits trial on charges that could put him in prison for 52 years, according to the Army. 

Even as members of Congress denounce both men’s actions as criminal, the Justice Department is still looking for a charge it can press against Mr. Assange, demanding from Twitter the account records, credit card numbers and bank account information of several of his associates. Legal experts say there are many obstacles to a prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder, but one approach under consideration is to link the two men in a conspiracy to disclose classified material. 

Accusations from supporters that Private Manning is being mistreated, perhaps to pressure him to testify against Mr. Assange, have rallied many on the political left to his defense. The assertions have even drawn the attention of the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Mendez, who said he had submitted a formal inquiry about the soldier’s treatment to the State Department. 

Private Manning’s cause has been taken up by the nation’s best-known leaker of classified secrets, Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971. He denounces Private Manning’s seven months in custody and media coverage that has emphasized the soldier’s sexual orientation (he is gay) and personal troubles. Mr. Ellsberg, 79, calls him a courageous patriot. 

“I identify with him very much,” Mr. Ellsberg said. “He sees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d say correctly, as I saw Vietnam — as hopeless ventures that are wrong and involve a great deal of atrocities.” 

The military rejects accusations that Private Manning has been mistreated. “Poppycock,” said Col. T. V. Johnson, a Quantico spokesman. He insisted that the conditions of confinement were dictated by brig rules for a pretrial detainee like Private Manning. The soldier has been designated for “maximum custody” — applied because his escape would pose a national security risk — and placed on “prevention-of-injury watch,” restrictions imposed so that he does not injure himself. 

That status is based on the judgment of military medical experts and the observations of brig guards, Colonel Johnson said. Guards check Private Manning every five minutes but allow him to sleep without interruption from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., when only dim night lights are on, unless they need to wake him to be certain he is breathing. 

Colonel Johnson denied that Private Manning was in solitary confinement, as has been widely claimed, saying that he could talk with guards and with prisoners in nearby cells, though he could not see them. He leaves his 6-by-12-foot cell for a daily hour of exercise, and for showers, phone calls, meetings with his lawyer and weekend visits by friends and relatives, the colonel said. 

The prisoner can read and watch television and correspond with people on an approved list. He is not permitted to speak to the media. 

“Pfc. Manning is being treated just like every other detainee in the brig,” said an internal military review concluded on Dec. 27 and read to a reporter by Colonel Johnson. “His treatment is firm, fair and respectful.” 

The soldier’s lawyer, David E. Coombs, declined to comment for this article, and two people who have visited him at Quantico — Private Manning’s aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, and a friend who is an M.I.T. graduate student, David M. House — did not respond to queries. 

In an interview with MSNBC last month, Mr. House said of his friend that he had “noticed a remarkable decline in his psychological state and his physical well-being.” He said that Private Manning appeared “very weak from a lack of exercise” and that “psychologically, he has difficulty keeping up with some conversational topics.” 

In an account on Mr. Coombs’s Web site of his client’s “typical day,” he detailed the restrictions on the soldier but called the guards’ conduct “professional.” 

“At no time have they tried to bully, harass or embarrass Pfc. Manning,” he wrote. 

Asked why the case appears to be moving so slowly, an Army spokeswoman, Shaunteh Kelly, said that the defense had requested a delay in July and that a “706 board,” or mental health evaluation, was not complete.

ERSAILLES, Ky. — Zenyatta has had her nails done and been visited by Capone, a teaser stallion with a not very romantic name. He will never have her, though. She is destined for a more pedigreed mate and, as in all arranged weddings, the days before will be fraught with the anxiety and stomach-turning expectations usually directed at the union of British royals. 

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At Home With Zenyatta

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Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Because mares are warm-weather lovers, lights in Zenyatta’s stall are left on until 10 p.m. to spur an amorous mood. More Photos » 

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Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Zenyatta is settling into her new home at Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky. “She’s one of a kind,” said Bill Farish, who runs the farm. More Photos » 

Who it is may be known as early as Monday, after the award for Horse of the Year is announced and Zenyatta’s owners, Jerry and Ann Moss, tell the equine world which stallion is Mr. Right. 

How Zenyatta will fare in her new career as a broodmare at Lane’s End Farm is anyone’s guess. She was a once-in-a-generation princess on the racetrack, winning 19 of 20 starts, with her lone defeat coming in her final race and against males in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. It was a heart-stopper. After spotting the field 20 lengths, Zenyatta bounded down the stretch, only to come a half-head short of catching the colt Blame. 

Breeding, however, is more magic than math. For every Personal Ensign, a mare who retired undefeated in 1988 after 13 races and became even more appreciated for her knack of passing on her talent to a bevy of high-class stakes horses, there is a Genuine Risk. She won the Kentucky Derby in 1980, one of only three fillies to do so, but produced just two named foals, neither of which made it to the racetrack. 

The Mosses and the people they have entrusted Zenyatta to know that the odds of coming up with another horse like her are long. They have been encouraged, however, by how Zenyatta has adjusted to being just a horse since arriving here a little over five weeks ago. 

The way that she crunches through the snow here like a downhill skier — a really big one — it is hard to imagine that she has spent virtually all her life in sunny California. 

Zenyatta, 7, is healthy. She has put on about 100 pounds without losing her muscle tone, and her winter coat is growing in with luster. 

“Maybe most important of all, she has two healthy ovaries,” the Lane’s End farm manager Michael Cline said, “especially with mares that have been at the racetrack as long as she has.” 

She is also, well, frisky. 

Zenyatta has enjoyed her daily, though fleeting, flirtation with Capone. He ambles down the broodmare barn here about 7:30 each morning with the sole mission of getting Zenyatta and the rest of the mares revved up and continually interested in male horses. 

Still, they are not leaving their chances to nature. Lights in Zenyatta’s stall are left on until 10 p.m., partly to spur an amorous mood, or at least to fake spring. Mares are warm-weather lovers: their 21-day cycles of heat come more easily in spring and summer, but breeders prefer mating them in February. 

“She is in her stall, but we let her get nose to nose with him,” Charles Campbell, the broodmare manager, said of Capone. “She’s really interested in him, and that’s not always the case with successful racemares, especially ones as big and imposing as her.” 

Just as casual horse fans were seduced by Zenyatta’s prerace dance steps and charismatic bearing, the seasoned horsemen here have been mightily impressed by her gentle nature and outsize personality. 

Bill Farish, who runs the farm founded by his father, Will Farish, a former ambassador to Britain, has been around champion horses all his life. Walk 40 yards in either direction from Zenyatta’s stall to Lane’s End stallion barns and a virtual who’s who of modern racing’s superstars stand ready for duty — the great A. P. Indy, the fashionable Smart Strike and the strapping Curlin are among them. 

Still, Farish is dazzled by the mammoth 17-hand, broad-bottomed mare who can flash footwork as delicate as a ballerina’s. 

“She’s a one of kind,” Farish said. “She’s intelligent, and everything she does is so nice.” 

No one here is taking any chances with Zenyatta. Her trainer, John Shirreffs, grazed her outside his barn at usually sunny Hollywood Park for up to five hours a day. It’s a different experience to be turned loose in a 15-acre field in freezing temperatures. 

For the first two weeks here, Zenyatta was hand walked by Lane’s End employees who cordoned off a smaller area beginning at 8 a.m. and passed her off to one another until it was time to return to her stall at 3 p.m. 

Who inevitably gets the first dream date with the big girl remains a guessing game among the hardboots in the bluegrass as well as more than 58,000 Zenyatta followers on Facebook and the multitudes more who hang on her daily diary at zenyatta.com. 

They have their opinions and well-wishes and offer them up by the screenful after each bit of news. Zenyatta’s jockey, Mike Smith, insists there is not a stallion out there worthy of the best horse he has ever ridden. 

In reality, there is a short list headed by a couple of superstars that live at Lane’s End. Will the Mosses pay $150,000 to mate with the proven stud A.P. Indy, or offer up a mere $40,000 for the up-and-comer Curlin? If the Mosses choose to sell the baby, which is doubtful, it could fetch several million dollars. 

No one is talking, of course. The Mosses, who live in California, are coming to visit Zenyatta on Sunday before heading to the Eclipse Awards in Florida on Monday. 

“Everyone back there misses her,” David Ingordo confesses, not trying to hide his melancholy. 

He is the son of Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, who is the Mosses’ racing manager and Shirreffs’s wife. Ingordo also is the bloodstock agent who had the foresight to pick Zenyatta out of a 2005 sale for a bargain-basement price of $60,000. He is the only member of Team Zenyatta based in Kentucky, and he keeps a close eye on the prize mare. 

Zenyatta, however, is hardly alone. She has a new posse, three other broodmares by the names of Alyce, Pirate Queen and Sea Gull, who share her pasture. Unlike the racetrack, where she famously liked to be at the back of the pack, Zenyatta is the front-runner here, leading the girls all around.