A U.S. Army private facing court-martial on suspicion of leaking secret documents to the WikiLeaks website testified on Thursday, Nov 29, he was confined to a "cage" in the early days after his arrest in 2010, and thought he would die there.

According to a Reuters report, Bradley Manning, in his first public comments since his arrest in Iraq, said his isolation quickly led to a breakdown, and his military captors eventually put him on suicide watch.

"My nights were my days and my days were my nights," Manning said. "It all blended together after a couple of days."

The low-ranking soldier Manning faces up to life in prison if convicted of charges he played a role in the massive leaking of secrets by WikiLeaks, which stunned governments around the world by publishing intelligence documents and diplomatic cables, mostly in 2010.