President Barack Obama has commuted the prison sentence of former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of military documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2016. She now will be freed in May.
She is among 209 prison commutations and 64 pardons Obama issued Tuesday as his presidency draws to a close. Most of the others were serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.
Chelsea Manning was formerly Bradley Manning when he handed over more than 700,000 classified U.S. military documents to WikiLeaks. They included battlefield reports from Afghanistan and Iraq, and State Department cables.
Government prosecutors argued that Manning's actions could have endangered the lives of U.S. servicemen and women.
The defense argued that Manning wanted to expose what they called the truth about U.S. military involvement, and that most of the information was worthless to anyone wanting to harm U.S. interests.
Manning admitted leaking the documents and said it was done, in part, because of his gender identity confusion.
He declared himself to be a woman after his sentencing, changed his named from Bradley to Chelsea, and said he plans to undergo a sex change surgery.
奥巴马总统为前美国陆军情报分析员切尔西·曼宁减刑。曼宁向维基揭秘网站泄露了几十万分军事文件,因而在2016年被判监禁35年。减刑后她将在5月获释。
奥巴马星期二在总统任期即将结束之际宣布对209人减刑,并对64人实行赦免。曼宁是获得总统宽大处理者之一。其他人多数因非暴力毒品犯罪而在服刑。
切尔西·曼宁把70多万份美军保密文件交给了维基揭秘,当时他还是男性,名叫布莱德利·曼宁。这些文件包括来自阿富汗和伊拉克的战地报告和美国国务院的秘电。
政府检察官称,曼宁的行为有可能把美国男女军人的生命置于险境。
辩方则称,曼宁希望揭发他们所说的有关美国军事介入的真相,其中多数信息对那些想要伤害美国利益的人来说没有任何价值。
曼宁承认泄露了文件,而且说,泄密的部分原因是对自己的性别身份感到困惑。
被判刑后,他宣布自己是女性,把名字从布莱德利改为切尔西,并说计划做变性手术。
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