Chelsea Manning ‘looking forward to so much’
Spent 7 years in confinement for leaks
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — arrangements, remained Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, unclear. The Oklahoma native spared by presidential had previously tweeted clemency from the rest of a that she planned to move to 35-year prison term for giving Maryland, where she has an classified materials to aunt, but her attorneys anti-secrecy websitehave cited security concerns WikiLeaks, stepped out of a in refusing to make military lockup Wednesday public specifics about her and into a future she said release or where she was she was eager to define. headed. The Army is allowing
“I’m figuring things out her to live where she right now — which is exciting, pleases — still on active awkward, fun, and all duty but under a special, new for me,” Pvt. Manning unpaid status. said by email hours after being Pvt. Manning relished her released from confinement newfound freedom, posting at Fort Leavenworth, on social media photos of Kan., having served seven her lunch — “So, [I’m] already years behind bars for one of enjoying my first hot, the largest cases of exposing greasy pizza,” she declared classified information in of the slice of pepperoni — U.S. history. and her feet in sneakers,
“I am looking forward to with the caption, “First steps so much! Whatever is ahead of freedom!!” of me is far more important Pvt. Manning, who is than the past,” added Pvt. transgender and was known Manning, 29, who was freed as Bradley Manning before the same day as Puerto Rico she transitioned in prison, nationalist Oscar Lopez was convicted in 2013 of 20 Rivera, another high-profile counts, including six Espionage inmate who also saw his Act violations, theft sentence commuted by and computer fraud. She then-President Barack was acquitted of the most serious Obama. charge of aiding the enemy.
Pvt. Manning’s immediate plans, including living Pvt. Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, has acknowledged leaking the materials, including more than 700,000 military and State Department documents, along with battlefield video. Pvt. Manning said she wanted to expose what she considered to be the U.S. military’s disregard of the effects of war on civilians and that she released information that she didn’t believe would harm the U.S.
Critics said the leaks laid bare some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and endangered information sources, prompting the State Department to help some of those people move to protect their safety. Several ambassadors were recalled, expelled or reassigned because of embarrassing disclosures.
Mr. Obama’s decision in January to commute Pvt. Manning’s sentence to about seven years, including the time she spent locked up before being convicted, drew strong criticism from members of Congress and others, with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan calling the move “just outrageous.”
On social media Wednesday, people either hailed her as a courageous hero or denounced her as a traitor.
Pvt. Manning will be on “excess leave” — meaning she is considered to be offduty — while her court-martial conviction is under appellate review, an Army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson, said.
Elsewhere, Rivera was freed from house arrest Wednesday after decades in custody in a case that transformed him into a martyr for his supporters but had outraged those who lost loved ones in a string of bombings.
Wearing black jeans and a shirt decorated with a Puerto Rican flag pin, the 74year-old greeted cheering supporters through a fence at his daughter’s San Juan home before getting into a jeep. Roughly 50 people held flowers, some embracing in tears and chanting: “Free at last!” A group of singers from University of Puerto Rico’s choir harmonized as Lopez drove by.
Lopez was considered a top leader of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN, an ultranationalist Puerto Rican group that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings at government buildings, department stores, banks and restaurants in New York, Chicago, Washington and Puerto Rico during the 1970s and early 1980s. The FBI classified the Marxist-Leninist group as a terrorist organization.
The most famous bombing was the still-unsolved 1975 explosion that killed four people and wounded 60 at Fraunces Tavern, a landmark restaurant in New York’s financial district.
Lopez, a Vietnam War veteran who moved from Puerto Rico to Chicago as a child, wasn’t convicted of any role in the bombings that killed six people and injured scores, but those who lost loved ones hold him responsible.