Why did pfc manning do it

You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Skip to Main Content Skip to Search. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. The judge in the case, Army Col. Denise Lind, announced the sentence in a military courtroom in Fort Meade, Md.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to sentence Manning to 60 years as a deterrent to others who might be tempted to leak secret documents. Joe Morrow had said during the sentencing hearing. Manning's defense had urged the military to sentence Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, to no more than 25 years in prison.

Manning leaked secret documents, which included battlefield reports and State Department cables, to WikiLeaks, which posted them on the Internet. The U. Prosecutors presented testimony from 80 witnesses over five weeks. There was testimony the leaked material revealed military tactics and other information an enemy could exploit.

The government also presented evidence that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden requested and received from an associate some of the documents Manning leaked after they were published on WikiLeaks. The defense presented testimony from 10 witnesses in three days, plus one rebuttal witness after resting. Manning did not testify. The defense evidence showed Manning was authorized, even encouraged, to view a wide range of classified information as part of his job.

The evidence was meant to counter charges that Manning exceeded his authorized computer access. Coombs said Manning had "pure intentions" in releasing the documents to WikiLeaks. Manning really, truly, genuinely believed that this information could make a difference. But in court documents released earlier this week that explained her verdicts, Lind said Manning's conduct "was both wanton and reckless.

Manning last week apologized for his actions in a short statement he read during the trial's sentencing phase. He said he was sorry for the "unintended consequences" of his actions and offered that with hindsight, "I should have worked more aggressively inside the system. Although he acknowledged that "I must pay a price for my decisions and actions" he also expressed the hope to "return to a productive place in society.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, said Manning's apology was a "forced decision" aimed at reducing his potential jail sentence. In a statement, he said the apology had been "extorted from him under the overbearing weight of the United States military justice system.

The court-martial began three years after Manning was first detained in Iraq for suspicion of having leaked the video of a Apache helicopter attack that killed several Iraqi civilians. He was subsequently charged with the leak of , documents that were a mix of U. The release of the documents has been described as the most extensive leak of classified information in U.

During the nearly two-month court martial, prosecutors presented detailed computer forensics of Manning's computer activity during his deployment to Iraq in late to mid They said the evidence showed that within weeks of his arrival in Baghdad, Manning had begun searching classified military computer networks for materials that were of interest to WikiLeaks.