{"id":84921,"date":"2013-08-21T17:56:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T15:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=84921"},"modified":"2013-08-22T08:40:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T06:40:27","slug":"bradley-manning-sentenced-in-wikileaks-espionage-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/84921-bradley-manning-sentenced-in-wikileaks-espionage-case.html","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Manning sentenced in WikiLeaks espionage case"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Russia denounces Manning Sentence<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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

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

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.<\/p>\n

Verdict in Bradley Manning Wikileaks espionage trial<\/h3>\n

US military judge Denise Lind\u00a0found Wikileaks\u2018 source Private Bradley Manning guilty of several counts of espionage on Tuesday (30 July 2013).<\/p>\n

Manning was cleared of the charge that he \u2018aided the enemy\u2019 which would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old has admitted giving the anti-secrecy website\u00a0470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material including several battlefield video clips.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t harm troops or national security.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Wikileaks Denounces \u201cDangerous\u201d Manning verdict<\/h3>\n

WikiLeaks denounced the US military judge\u2019s verdict against soldier Bradley Manning, saying it reflected \u201cdangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also said in a reaction posted on Twitter that the conviction of Manning on several counts of espionage set a \u201cvery serious new precedent for supplying formation to the press\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Sapa-DPA, Sapa-AFP.<\/em><\/p>\n

More whistle-blower news<\/h3>\n

WikiLeaks’ Manning apologises for \u201churting the US\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Manning\u2019s mental health questioned at sentencing<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Snowden leaves Moscow airport for safe harbour<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sentence has been passed in the espionage trial of Wikileaks\u2019 source Private Bradley Manning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":79457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[36,617,5872,18554,613],"class_list":["post-84921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-active","tag-bradley-manning","tag-cyber-espionage","tag-freedom-of-information","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84945,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84921\/revisions\/84945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}