Obama shortens sentence of WikiLeaks whistleblower : The Tribune India

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Obama shortens sentence of WikiLeaks whistleblower

WASHINGTON:President Barack Obama has shortened the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former US military intelligence analyst who was responsible for a 2010 leak of classified materials to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the biggest such breach in US history.

Obama shortens sentence of WikiLeaks whistleblower


Washington, January 18

President Barack Obama has shortened the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former US military intelligence analyst who was responsible for a 2010 leak of classified materials to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the biggest such breach in US history.

A White House official said there was no connection between Manning’s commutation and renewed US government concern about WikiLeaks’ actions during last year’s presidential election, or a promise by founder Julian Assange to accept extradition if Manning was freed.

Manning has been a focus of a worldwide debate on government secrecy since she provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks — a leak for which she was sentenced to serve 35 years in prison.

Obama, in one of his final acts before leaving office, reduced her sentence to seven years, angering some Republicans.

“This is just outrageous,” House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement. Ryan, a Republican, said the decision was a “dangerous precedent” for those who leak materials about national security.

“Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets,” Ryan said.

Manning was working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2010 when she gave WikiLeaks a trove of diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts that included a 2007 gunsight video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters news staff.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton said the leak endangered troops, intelligence officers, diplomats and allies.

“We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr,” Cotton said.

Manning, formerly known as US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman. The White House said her sentence would end on May 17 this year.

Manning, who twice tried to kill herself last year and has struggled to cope as a transgender woman in the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, men’s military prison, accepted responsibility for leaking the material — a factor that fed into Obama’s decision, a White House official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said Obama’s decision was rooted in Manning’s sentence being longer than sentences given to others who had committed comparable crimes.

WikiLeaks also published emails in the weeks leading up to the November 8 presidential election that US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence agencies hacked the Democratic National Committee and the accounts of leading Democrats, part of a campaign by Moscow to influence the election. — Reuters


Assange welcomes decision, had offered to be extradited

London: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has welcomed the decision by US President Barack Obama to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning, while calling for an end to a “war on whistleblowers”. He said Manning should never have been convicted and described her as “a hero, whose bravery should have been applauded not condemned”. “In order for democracy and the rule of law to thrive, the government should immediately end this war on whistleblowers, and publishers such as WikiLeaks and myself,” Assange added. Earlier this month, WikiLeaks said on Twitter that Assange would agree to US extradition if Obama were to grant Manning clemency. He has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault allegations. AFP

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