Leaks soldier weeps as she hails Obama
WIKILEAKS soldier Chelsea Manning wept as she thanked ex-President Barack Obama for freeing her from prison.
Transgender Manning, 29, speaking for the first time since being released after the US military’s biggest classified leak, said: “I was given a chance, that’s all I wanted.”
Obama commuted her 35-year sentence just before he left office. She served seven years.
British-raised Manning had been an intelligence analyst in Iraq when she passed 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.
She said on US TV she did it as she felt a “responsibility to the public”. The ex-US Army private added: “No one told me to do this.”