Private First Class Bradley Manning, the soldier accused and convicted of leaking 750,000 pages of classified documents to Wikileaks received a sentence of 35 years in prison in court on Wednesday.
Although Manning could have received as many as 90 years in prison, and prosecutors had asked for at least 60 years, At Fort Meade, where Manning’s trial was held, Judge Colonel Denise Lind sentenced Manning to 35 years on the 20 charges he was found guilty of last month. Manning avoided a possible life sentence when Judge Lind rejected charges of Aiding the Enemy.
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Manning showed no reaction or said anything after his sentence was handed down.
In addition to his prison sentence, Manning will be reduced from Private First Class to Private and be dishonorably discharged from the Army. His sentence is reduced by the amount of time that he has already spent in prison as well as 112 days. He will be eligible for parole once he serves one-third of his sentence, which means he may get out of prison as soon as 2024. The 112 days taken from his sentence was for the harsh treatment that Manning underwent after his arrest.
The sentence that Manning received is 17 times longer than any sentence ever served for providing secret material to the media.
Manning was serving as a low-level intelligence analyst for the Army in Baghdad when he handed over documents to the the website Wikileaks. The material shocked the world. One such video, dubbed “Collateral Murder” was posted to the web showing an Army helicopter gunning down suspected insurgents in Baghdad, two of those “suspected” insurgents were two Reuters New staffers.
Manning will likely pursue years of appeals in the case. He will likely first request clemency from Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan, the Army Official that convened the trial.
Amnesty International has also called on President Obama to commute Manning’s sentence, while other groups are saying Manning should be a candidate of the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
As Manning was led away from the courtroom, one spectator yelled, “We’re still here fighting for you!” Demonstrators gathered outside of the court holding signs and chanting, “Bradley we are with you.”
Manning will probably serve his sentence in Fort Leavenworth at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Kansas.