FORT MEADE, Md. — A military judge sentenced Pfc. Bradley Manning on Wednesday to 35 years in prison for providing more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks, a gigantic leak that lifted the veil on military and diplomatic activities around the world.
The judge, Army Col. Denise R. Lind, said that Private Manning was dishonorably discharged. She reduced him to the lowest rank of private, from his previous rank of private first class, and said he had to forfeit all pay.
Colonel Lind could have sentenced Private Manning, 25, to up to 90 years. She
found him guilty last month of most of the charges against him, including six counts of violating the Espionage Act, five counts of stealing government property and one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, a charge never before filed in a leak case.
Private Manning’s disclosures to WikiLeaks included a video taken during
an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007 in which civilians were killed, including two journalists.
His sentence will automatically be sent to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Before the next phase can begin, the entire court-martial proceedings must be turned into an official transcript, which both the defense and prosecution, as well as the judge, must approve; that process is expected to take considerable time. Pretrial hearings started in 2012, and the trial itself began in early June.
During closing arguments in the sentencing phase, prosecutors urged Colonel Lind to sentence Private Manning to at least 60 years in prison, saying he had betrayed the government. They also said they hoped that the severity of the punishment would discourage future leaks of entire electronic archives.
The prosecution also recommended that Private Manning be reduced in rank, given a dishonorable discharge, forced to forfeit his pay and fined $100,000 to repay some of what the government said had been spent on efforts to mitigate damage, including reviewing documents and identifying individuals who officials said were put at risk by the disclosures.
Private Manning’s defense lawyer, David Coombs, argued that his client had leaked the documents because he believed the public had a right to know about aspects of the Iraq war that he found troubling.
But Mr. Coombs, seeking leniency, also argued that his client was naïve and confused at the time by stresses including going through a crisis over his gender identity while on a military deployment to a combat zone. He also elicited testimony showing that the military had played down serious and recurring signs that his client’s mental health was deteriorating, noting that had the military responded differently, his client might not have had access to classified information.
Last week, Private Manning apologized for his actions, saying they had “hurt people” and “hurt the United States.” He said that while he was going through a “considerable difficulty in my life” at the time, “these issues are not an excuse for my actions. I understood what I was doing and the decisions I made.”
Held up by his supporters as a hero, Private Manning
has attracted international support, inspiring demonstrations outside the Army base here where his court-martial was held and as far away as Australia and South Korea.
The Bradley Manning Support Network, a grass-roots group, says it has raised $1.4 million from more than 22,000 contributors to cover his legal fees.
Private Manning was arrested in May 2010 after he told a former computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he had given hundreds of thousands of secret government files to WikiLeaks. Mr. Lamo turned him in to military authorities.
A little more than three years will be deducted from Private Manning’s sentence for the time he has already spent in custody. He also will be credited with 112 days for the treatment he endured at a military jail that the judge ruled was unlawful.
He is one of seven people to be charged in connection with the leaks of classified information to the news media under the Obama administration, the latest being Edward J. Snowden, the former government contractor who disclosed secret documents from the National Security Agency to The Guardian and The Washington Post. There were only three such cases in all previous administrations combined.
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