Manning out of jail after serving seven years for leaking secrets
CHELSEA MANNING, the transgender soldier jailed for leaking classified files to Wikileaks, has been released from a Kansas military prison after serving seven years of her 35-year sentence.
US army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith confirmed Private Manning was released from Fort Leavenworth yesterday. She was known as Bradley Manning before transitioning in prison.
Former president Barack Obama granted Manning clemency during his final days in office.
Manning, an Oklahoma native, was convicted in 2013 of 20 counts, including six Espionage Act violations, theft and computer fraud. She was acquitted of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy.
The former intelligence analyst in Iraq acknowledged leaking the materials, saying she wanted to expose what she considered to be the US military’s disregard of the effects of war on civilians.
Her leak included battlefield videos including one which showed Iraqi civilians being killed by helicopter fire.
Private Manning later said that she is uncertain where her life will take her after serving seven years in jail.
She said in a statement that “whatever is ahead... is far more important than the past”, and that she is “figuring things out right now”.
The statement was emailed just hours after her release from a military prison in Kansas.
Minutes later, she tweeted a photo of her feet in tennis shoes, with the caption: “First steps of freedom!!”
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.
Ms Manning, who was arrested in 2010, filed a transgender rights lawsuit in prison and attempted suicide twice last year, according to her lawyers.