Former US army intelligence analyst and Wikileaks source Chelsea Manning has been released from prison. Manning was remanded for refusing to testify in an inquiry into Wikileaks.
She had been held in a detention centre in Virginia since last May. She was scheduled to appear in court on Friday, but the judge ruled that it was no longer necessary for her to testify. Manning was found guilty in of charges including espionage for leaking secret military files to Wikileaks.
Her legal team had asked for these to be vacated, but the judge said they must be paid in full. Manning, 32, refused to answer further questions about Wikileaks from investigators because she said she had already given her testimony during the trial.
Her release order on Thursday came shortly after her legal team said she had tried to take her own life and was recovering in hospital. Police confirmed there was "an incident" involving Manning at the detention centre in Virginia on Wednesday afternoon. When word of these conditions spread, there was an international outcry. Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in , where she was allowed to have personal effects in a windowed cell.
In January , the judge in Manning's case ruled that her imprisonment had been unduly harsh and gave her a sentencing credit.
In June , Manning was charged with leaking classified information. In March , additional charges were added. These included the accusation of aiding the enemy, as the information Manning had leaked had been accessible to Al-Qaeda.
In February , Manning pleaded guilty to storing and leaking military information. She explained that her actions had been intended to encourage debate, not harm the United States.
She continued to plead not guilty to several other charges while her court martial proceeded. On July 30, Manning was found guilty of 20 counts, including espionage, theft and computer fraud. However, the judge ruled she was not guilty of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge Manning had faced. On August 21, , Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Manning was dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank and forced to forfeit all pay.
The Obama administration maintained that military and diplomatic sources were endangered by Manning's leaks. Even with Manning's conviction, the debate continues as to whether she shared dangerous intelligence or if she was a whistleblower who received too harsh of a punishment. On the day after her sentencing, Manning announced via a statement on the morning talk show Today that she is transgender.
I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," Manning said. After filing a court petition, Manning was granted the right in late April of to be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. The army made hormone therapy available to the former intelligence analyst, who continued to be held at Fort Leavenworth, though other restrictions were imposed, including measures on hair length.
During the summer of , Manning was reportedly threatened with solitary confinement for prison rule violations that her attorneys asserted were veiled forms of harassment by authorities. On July 5, , Manning was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
She faced a disciplinary hearing related to her suicide attempt and was sentenced to solitary confinement. On October 4, , while spending the first night in solitary confinement, she attempted suicide again.
Support for her release continued to grow and in the waning days of President Barack Obama's presidency, , people signed a petition asking him to commute her sentence. On January 17, , Obama did just that, cutting short Manning's remaining prison sentence, which allowed her to be freed on May 17, An administration official said she was not immediately released in order to allow for time to handle items like procuring housing.
Manning served seven years of the year sentence, with some Republicans, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan , critiquing the act of clemency. Manning has shared her perspectives on gender identity, imprisonment and political affairs via a series of columns written for The Guardian.
Four months after her release from prison, Manning appeared in the September issue of Vogu e magazine, featuring photographs by Annie Liebovitz. Those are really foundational for me. Judge Claude Hilton, who is overseeing the case, said [Manning] would be held indefinitely "until she purges [herself] or the end of the life of the grand jury," the Washington Post newspaper reported.
A spokesman for the US attorney in the Alexandria, Virginia, federal court confirmed her detention. He added that the judge ordered her detention not to punish her but to force her testimony. The move came after Manning refused to answer questions before a secret grand jury trial earlier this week that is investigating actions by WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday, Manning said she expected to be detained for her refusal to answer questions. She added that she is prepared to face the consequences and that her legal team will continue fighting against the secrecy of the legal proceedings in the WikiLeaks case. I will exhaust every legal remedy available," she said.
Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst, became known around the world after she delivered over , classified documents to WikiLeaks in The documents contained information on US military actions during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She became renowned as a whistleblower, with the leak helping to make WikiLeaks a massive player in the global anti-secrecy movement. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison in , but her sentence was later commuted by then-US President Barack Obama, leading to her release in May
0コメント