Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years For Espionage

August 21, 2013

A military judge has sentenced Army Private Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for espionage. He provided 750,000 secret files to WikiLeaks in what is considered the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history.

After three years in prison, the 25-year-old soldier and former intelligence analyst arrived at military court to hear his sentence: 35 years for committing espionage.

It's much lighter than the 90 years he could have gotten for digging up and releasing hundreds of thousands of files including State Department cables, military field reports, and videos like this one that shows U.S. troops firing on civilians in Baghdad.

Manning says he did it to expose the wrongfulness of war and U.S. actions overseas. The government called him a traitor.

In the end, testimony pointed to no specific harm and no deaths caused by the leaks.

Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Morris Davis is a former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo who testified on Manning's behalf.

“The worst thing Bradley Manning did is embarrass the country," said Davis.

In consultation with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Manning searched for the material while deployed in Iraq.

Some of the documents published by Wikileaks were found in Osama Bin Ladin's compound in Pakistan.

However, the judge cleared Manning of the more serious charge of aiding the enemy.