Security21.08.2013

Bradley Manning sentenced in WikiLeaks espionage case

By SAPA

US Army Private Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison Wednesday for providing a trove of classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, a military judge ruled.

Russia denounces Manning Sentence

Russia on Wednesday called the 35-year sentence handed down to US Army Private Bradley Manning for divulging state secrets “unjustifiably harsh” and accused the United States of double standards.

The Russian foreign ministry’s human rights representative argued that “when US interests are at stake, as was the case with Bradley Manning, the American justice system adopts unjustifiably harsh decisions … without any regard for human rights.”

Manning passed a massive cache of classified government documents to WikiLeaks anti-secrecy headed by Julian Assange. He was sentenced by a US military judge earlier Wednesday.

Russia bristles at US condemnations of its own human rights record under President Vladimir Putin and has recently angered Washington by issuing temporary asylum to fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

The foreign ministry’s human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov told Interfax that “such a display of double standards (by Washington) … once again undermines the United States’ claim of being a leader” on human rights.

Verdict in Bradley Manning Wikileaks espionage trial

US military judge Denise Lind found Wikileaks‘ source Private Bradley Manning guilty of several counts of espionage on Tuesday (30 July 2013).

Manning was cleared of the charge that he ‘aided the enemy’ which would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison

Manning was serving in 2010 as an intelligence analyst in Iraq when he sent WikiLeaks a vast cache of secret diplomatic cables and classified military reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 25-year-old has admitted giving the anti-secrecy website 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material including several battlefield video clips.

The video included footage of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed at least nine men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.

Manning claims he sent the material to expose war crimes and deceitful diplomacy. In closing arguments last week, defense attorney David Coombs portrayed Manning as a naive whistleblower who never intended the material to be seen by the enemy. Manning claims he selected material that wouldn’t harm troops or national security.

Prosecutors called him an anarchist hacker and traitor who indiscriminately leaked classified information he had sworn to protect, knowing it would be seen by al-Qaida. They showed that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden obtained copies of some of the documents WikiLeaks published before bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in 2011.

Manning pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges, including espionage and computer fraud, which could carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Prosecutors accepted just one of his pleas and chose to continue prosecuting Manning for the greater offenses.

He was charged with eight federal Espionage Act violations, five federal theft counts and two federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations, each punishable by up to 10 years; and five military counts of violating a lawful general regulation, punishable by up to two years each.

Wikileaks Denounces “Dangerous” Manning verdict

WikiLeaks denounced the US military judge’s verdict against soldier Bradley Manning, saying it reflected “dangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration”.

It also said in a reaction posted on Twitter that the conviction of Manning on several counts of espionage set a “very serious new precedent for supplying formation to the press”.

Reporting by Sapa-DPA, Sapa-AFP.