Bradley Manning Sentenced to 35 Years in Jail

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Bradley manning-001 Bradley Manning, the US Army Private, who leaked thousands of classified military documents to website Wikileaks has been sentenced to 35 years in jail by a US military court.

The sentence was significantly less than the potential 90 years sentence the soldier could have been given. Manning who is 25 years old will be required to serve one third of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. The prosecution had requested a jail term of 60 years.

Last month Manning was found guilty of 20 offenses including six violations of the USA’s espionage act.

Last week, ahead of his sentencing, Manning apologised for his actions.

“I’m sorry that my actions hurt people,” said Manning, “I’m sorry that they hurt the United States.

“When I made these decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.”

Manning’s disclosure of 700,000 documents including military field reports and diplomatic cables was a major embarrassment to the US government. Manning also released a video of an Apache helicopter attack that revealed that the US had accidentally killed nine civilians.


Manning’s defense lawyers had argued that the private was confused about his gender identity, under pressure to keep his sexuality a secret due to the USA’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy and that his actions were motivated by youthful idealism.

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