Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in WikiLeaks case
Washington, Aug 22: A US military judge Wednesday sentenced Bradley Manning, an army private, to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information of the government to whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
The
judge,
Army
Col.
Denise
Lind,
handed
down
the
sentence
at
Fort
Meade,
outside
Washington.
She
also
ordered
that
Manning,
the
army
intelligence
analyst,
be
reduced
in
rank
to
private
and
be
dishonourably
discharged
from
the
army,
Xinhua
reported.
Manning, now 25, could face a maximum of 90 years in prison. He was convicted of several charges last month, including espionage and theft. But the judge found him not guilty of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which possibly carried a life term in prison.
Manning was accused of delivering to WikiLeaks three-quarters of a million pages of classified documents and videos, which covered numerous aspects of US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and US diplomatic missions across the world.
WikiLeaks, though, has never confirmed Manning as the source of its information.
Manning was arrested months later after one of the leaked videos appeared on WikiLeaks in April 2010. It was a gunfire video of a US attack helicopter firing at a group of people in Baghdad in 2007.
WikiLeaks, an international organisation that publishes secret information and news leaks from anonymous sources, continues to publish documents related to the 2010 Afghanistan war, the Iraq war Logs and diplomatic cables by US State Department officials.
IANS