Bradley Manning, the US soldier alleged to have passed a trove of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, will have a first hearing before a military court next month, the Pentagon said.

Manning, who has spent the past year-and-a-half in prison, is to appear before a December 16 tribunal in Fort Meade, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, military officials said.

Manning is to appear at an “Article 32 hearing,” the first step in a court martial that could end up in a life sentence.

“The primary purpose of the Article 32 hearing is to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government’s case as well as to provide the defense with an opportunity to obtain pretrial discovery,” a Pentagon statement said.