Whisteblower Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley) is the US Army Private (Pfc) who leaked military and government documents to the online media outlet Wikileaks which became the basis for the Collateral Murder video, which showed the killing of unarmed civilians by a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq.
Leaks made by Manning also resulted in the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and a series of embarrassing US diplomatic cables that became known as Cablegate.
The Guantánamo files are among hundreds of thousands of documents US soldier Bradley Manning is accused of having turned over to the WikiLeaks website more than a year ago.
In 2013, she was convicted by a military court or the disclosures and sentence to 35 years in prison. In 2017, in the last days of his presidency, President Barack Obama coummuted her sentence. She was released from prison in May of 2017.
In February 2019, Manning received a subpoena to testify in a US government case against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Manning condemned the secrecy of the hearings and announced she would avoid testifying, saying “we’ve seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice.” Manning also said she had provided all the information she had in 2013 during her court martial and that she stood by her previous answers.
On March 8, 2019, Manning was held in contempt of court and jailed in the women’s wing of the federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, with the judge conditioning her release on her testifying or the grand jury concluding its work.
Manning was released on May 9, 2019, after the grand jury’s term expired. She was immediately served with another subpoena to appear before a new grand jury on 16 May. On 16 May 2019, Manning again refused to testify before the grand jury investigating Julian Assange stating that she “believe[d] this grand jury seeks to undermine the integrity of public discourse with the aim of punishing those who expose any serious, ongoing, and systemic abuses of power by this government”.
She was returned to jail for the 18-month term of the grand jury. In addition a fine was imposed of $500 for each day she spends in jail over 30 days and $1,000 for each day she spends in jail over 60 days.
Source: Chelsea Manning
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