Manning apologizes in court for leaking secret data
Print Edition
US soldier Bradley Manning, taking the stand at his sentencing hearing in the WikiLeaks case, apologized for hurting his country and pleaded with a military judge for a chance to go to college and become a productive citizen.
He addressed the court on Wednesday after a day of testimony about his troubled childhood in Oklahoma and the psychological pressure experts said he felt in the “hyper-masculine” military because of his gender-identity disorder — his feeling he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. One psychiatrist said Manning has symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.
“I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I’m sorry that they hurt the United States,” Manning said.
The soldier said he understood what he was doing but didn’t believe at the time leaking classified information to the anti-secrecy website would cause harm to the US.
Manning, 25, could be sentenced to 90 years in prison for the leaks, which occurred while he was working as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010. The judge will impose the sentence, though exactly when is unclear. The next session, for any prosecution rebuttal testimony, is set for today.
The release of diplomatic cables, warzone logs and videos was the largest leak of documents in US history. It included a video of a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters news photographer.
Though he often showed little reaction to court proceedings during most of the two-and-a-half month court-martial, Manning appeared to struggle to contain his emotions several times on Wednesday during testimony from his sister, an aunt and two mental health counselors, one who treated him and another who diagnosed him with several problems.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the apology was forced.
“Mr Manning’s apology is a statement extorted from him under the overbearing weight of the United States military justice system. It took three years and millions of dollars to extract two minutes of tactical remorse from this brave soldier,” Assange said.
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