- Bradley Manning, 25, was found not guilty of Aiding the Enemy by sending troves of classified material to WikiLeaks
- However, he was found guilty of 20 out of 21 charges leveled against him and still faces the possibility of life behind bars
- Officially convicted of passing information to WikiLeaks - headed by Julian Assange
- On the eve of the verdict Assange called Manning a 'hero'
- Sentencing will begin tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m.
- Prosecutor failed to prove Manning knew classified information would be seen by Al-Qaeda
- Bin Laden had digital files at his compound in Pakistan when he was killed
By Daily Mail Reporter
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Private Bradley Manning, the former Army intelligence who sent over 700,000 secret government documents to WikiLeaks, was dramatically convicted of all espionage charges leveled against him this afternoon, but acquitted of being a traitor.
Manning stood at attention, flanked by his attorneys, as the judge read her verdicts. He appeared not to react, though his attorney, David Coombs, smiled faintly when he heard not guilty on Aiding the Enemy.
When the judge was done, Coombs put his hand on Manning's back and whispered something to him, eliciting a slight smile on the soldier's face.
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Pyrrhic Victory: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning departs the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland after his acquittal for Aiding the Enemy
Manning, 25, was found guilty of 20 out of 21 charges for handing documents to WikiLeaks, headed by Julian Assange three years ago and still faces the possibility of up to 136 years behind bars.
The verdict was announced by Colonel Denise Lind, the judge at Manning's long court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning's sentencing will begin at 9.30 a.m. (EST) tomorrow.
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a statement in which he praised Manning as the 'quintessential whistleblower' and attacked the United States and President Obama for pursuing an espionage conviction against him.
Accusing President Obama of hypocrisy, Assange, who is currently holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London evading extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, said that the administration had 'betrayed' their principles.?
Convicted: US Army Private Bradley Manning (center) leaves the courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland after being acquitted by a US military judge on the key charge of aiding the enemy in the Wikileaks case, but still facing up to 144 years in jail
Still Facing Prison: Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge he faced, but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges, more than three years after he spilled secrets to WikiLeaks
Moment of Truth: In this courtroom sketch, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, (third from left), stands with lead defense attorney David Coombs, (center), and his defense team as Army Col. Denise Lind, (right), who is presiding over the trial, reads her verdict
Mixed Reactions: Supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning hold signs to show support during a demonstration outside the main gate of Ft. Meade July 30th, 2013 in Maryland
Critical: Julian Assange, in the Ecuadorian embassy in central London, who tonight attacked the conviction of US soldier Bradley Manning on espionage charges, calling him a 'hero'
To convict Manning of Aiding the Enemy, prosecutors had to prove during the trial that Manning had 'a general evil intent' and was aware that the material leaked to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks would go directly to al-Qaeda.
Their failure to will be seen as a victory for champions of freedom of speech and investigative journalism not just in the United States, but worldwide.
However, the victory will be viewed as pyrrhic, because Manning still faces the likelihood of dying behind bars due to the guilty verdicts on the other charges.
Wikileaks initially responded to Manning's espionage convictions to label them 'dangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration.'
Coombs came outside the court to a round of applause and shouts of 'thank you' from a few dozen Manning supporters.
'We won the battle, now we need to go win the war,' Coombs said of the sentencing phase. 'Today is a good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire.'
Supporters thanked him for his work. One slipped him a private note. Others asked questions about verdicts that they didn't understand.
Manning's court-martial was unusual because he acknowledged giving the anti-secrecy website more than 700,000 battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, and video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
In the footage, airmen laughed and called targets 'dead b******ds.' A military investigation found troops mistook the camera equipment for weapons.
Conflicting Results: David Coombs, lead defense attorney for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, walks out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, today after receiving a verdict in Manning's court martial
A supporter of U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning protests outside the main gate before the reading of the verdict in Manning's military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland July 30th, 2013
Supporters of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning flash peace signs outside of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland on Tuesday, July 30th, 2013, after Manning receiving a verdict in his court martial
On the eve of the verdict, WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange had called Manning a 'hero'.
'We call those types of people that are willing to risk ... being a martyr for all the rest of us, we call those people heroes,' Assange told CNN's Jake Tapper. 'Bradley Manning is a hero.'
If he had been found guilty of Aiding the Enemy, Manning would have faced a sentence of up to 154 years.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist, commentator and former civil rights lawyer who first reported Edward Snowden?s disclosure of U.S. surveillance programs, said Manning?s acquittal on the charge of aiding the enemy represented a 'tiny sliver of justice.'
?(this is) 'dangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration.' Wikileaks statement posted to Twitter on the Manning Verdict?
Manning stood and faced the judge as she read the decision. She didn't explain her verdict, but said she would release detailed written findings. She didn't say when she would do that.
Military prosecutors argued all along that Manning, who was arrested in May, 2010, knew that the secret State Department cables, real-time combat videos and battle-field assessments would be obtained by al-Qaeda once they were posted onto WikiLeaks.
The U.S. government was pushing for the maximum penalty for the intelligence analyst's leaking of information that included battlefield reports from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It viewed the action as a serious breach of national security, while anti-secrecy activists praised it as shining a light on shadowy U.S. operations abroad.
Military Justice: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (right) arrives at the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland on July 30th, 2013. Manning learned on Tuesday the verdict in his espionage trial
Reckoning: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (R) enters the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland, in the morning on July 30th, 2013 to face the verdict in his espionage trial
Security officers stand guard before Private First Class Bradley Manning is escorted into court for the reading of the verdict in his military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland July 30, 2013
The uniform, handcuffs, nametag and service ribbons of U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning are seen as he departs the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland on Tuesday, July 30th
Army prosecutors contended during the court-martial that U.S. security was harmed when the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website published combat videos of an attack by an American Apache helicopter gunship, diplomatic cables and secret details on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay that Manning provided to the site while he was a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
Manning, who early this year pleaded guilty to lesser charges that carried a 20-year sentence, will still be looking at a long prison term when the trial's sentencing phase gets under way on Wednesday.
'This is a historic verdict,' said Elizabeth Goitein, a security specialist at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
'Manning is one of very few people ever charged under the Espionage Act prosecutions for leaks to the media ... Despite the lack of any evidence that he intended any harm to the United States, Manning faces decades in prison. That's a very scary precedent,' she added.
Controversial: Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy - the most serious charge he faced - but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges
U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (C) is escorted out of court after the verdict for his military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland today
Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, issued a statement in response to the verdict saying that 'it seems clear that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information' to the press in the future.
The verdict 'reveals the U.S. government's misplaced priorities on national security,' according to Amnesty International.
'The government's pursuit of the 'aiding the enemy' charge was a serious overreach of the law, not least because there was no credible evidence of Manning's intent to harm the USA by releasing classified information to Wikileaks,' said Widney Brown, senior director of international law and policy at Amnesty International according to CNN.
A crowd of about 30 Manning supporters had gathered outside Fort Meade ahead of the reading of the verdict.
Besides the aiding the enemy acquittal, Manning was also found not guilty of an espionage charge when the judge found prosecutors had not proved their assertion Manning started giving material to WikiLeaks in late 2009. Manning said he started the leaks in February the following year.
First Court Martial Appearance: Bradley Manning (L) is escorted from the courthouse after his Article 32 hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland, December 17th, 2011
Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to lesser offenses that could have brought him 20 years behind bars, yet the government continued to pursue all but one of the original, more serious charges.
Manning said during a pre-trial hearing in February he leaked the material to expose the U.S military's 'bloodlust' and disregard for human life, and what he considered American diplomatic deceit. He said he chose information he believed would not the harm the United States and he wanted to start a debate on military and foreign policy. He did not testify at his court-martial.
Coombs portrayed Manning as a 'young, naive but good-intentioned' soldier who was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay service member at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. military.
'The Only Victim was the United States' Wounded Pride': Statement by WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on the Bradley Manning Verdict
'Today Bradley Manning, a whistleblower, was convicted by a military court at Fort Meade of 19 offences for supplying the press with information, including five counts of ?espionage?. He now faces a maximum sentence of 136 years.
'The ?aiding the enemy? charge has fallen away. It was only included, it seems, to make calling journalism ?espionage? seem reasonable. It is not.
'Bradley Manning?s alleged disclosures have exposed war crimes, sparked revolutions, and induced democratic reform. He is the quintessential whistleblower.
'This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security extremism. It is a short sighted judgment that can not be tolerated and must be reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public is ?espionage?.
'President Obama has initiated more espionage proceedings against whistleblowers and publishers than all previous presidents combined.
'In 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama ran on a platform that praised whistleblowing as an act of courage and patriotism. That platform has been comprehensively betrayed. His campaign document described whistleblowers as watchdogs when government abuses its authority. It was removed from the internet last week.
'Throughout the proceedings there has been a conspicuous absence: the absence of any victim. The prosecution did not present evidence that - or even claim that - a single person came to harm as a result of Bradley Manning?s disclosures. The government never claimed Mr. Manning was working for a foreign power.
'The only ?victim? was the US government?s wounded pride, but the abuse of this fine young man was never the way to restore it. Rather, the abuse of Bradley Manning has left the world with a sense of disgust at how low the Obama administration has fallen. It is not a sign of strength, but of weakness.
'The judge has allowed the prosecution to substantially alter the charges after both the defense and the prosecution had rested their cases, permitted the prosecution 141 witnesses and extensive secret testimony.
'The government kept Bradley Manning in a cage, stripped him naked and isolated him in order to crack him, an act formally condemned by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for torture. This was never a fair trial.
'The Obama administration has been chipping away democratic freedoms in the United States. With today?s verdict, Obama has hacked off much more. The administration is intent on deterring and silencing whistleblowers, intent on weakening freedom of the press.
'The US first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". What part of ?no? does Barack Obama fail to comprehend?'
He said Manning could have sold the information or given it directly to the enemy, but he gave it to WikiLeaks in an attempt to 'spark reform' and provoke debate.
Counterintelligence witnesses valued the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs at about $5.7 million.
Coombs said Manning had no way of knowing whether al-Qaeda would access the secret-spilling website and a 2008 counterintelligence report showed the government itself didn't know much about the site.
The defense attorney also mocked the testimony of a former supervisor who said Manning told her the American flag meant nothing to him and she suspected before they deployed to Iraq that Manning was a spy.
Coombs noted she had not written up a report on Manning's alleged disloyalty, though had written ones on him taking too many smoke breaks and drinking too much coffee.
A file photograph dated 22 December 2011 shows US Army Private Bradley Manning (C) being escorted out of the courthouse following the closing arguments in his pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
The government alleged during the court martial that Manning had sophisticated security training and broke signed agreements to protect the secrets.
He even had to give a presentation on operational security during his training after he got in trouble for posting a YouTube video about what he was learning.
The guilty verdict on most of the counts could make it difficult for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to persuade future sources of information to share classified details with the website.
That is going to make it more difficult for people who want to deal with Assange. They are going to be at greater risk and that will put his operation at risk," said Michael Corgan, a professor of international relations at Boston University and former officer in the U.S. Navy.
'It will have a very chilling effect on WikiLeaks,' he said ahead of the verdict.
Manning, originally from Crescent, Oklahoma, opted to have his case heard by a judge, rather than a panel of military jurors.
During the court-martial proceedings, military prosecutors called the defendant a 'traitor' for publicly posting information that the U.S. government said could jeopardize national security and intelligence operations.
Members of the prosecution team, (L-R) Captain Angel Overgaard and Major Ashden Fein, arrive for a motion hearing in the case United States vs. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning June 6, 2012 in Fort Meade, Maryland
Tribunal: In this courtroom sketch provided by the U.S. Army, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning (2nd L) sits with his military defense attorneys before Army Judge Denise Lind (R) in a courthouse in Fort Meade, in Maryland
Defense lawyers described Manning as well-intentioned but naive in hoping that his disclosures would provoke a more intense debate in the United States about diplomatic and military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prior to the verdict, two dozen supporters of Manning demonstrated outside Fort Meade where Colonel Denise Lind prepared to deliver her decision on whether Manning aided the enemy at 1 p.m (EST) on Tuesday afternoon.
Fresh Faced: A 24 October 2010image shows Army Specialist Bradley Manning. Private Bradley Manning was found not guilty on 30 July 2013 by a U.S. military judge on the key charge of aiding the enemy in the Wikileaks case
Manning, 25, faced 22 counts including espionage, computer fraud and theft charges for providing 700,000 classified government documents to the WikiLeaks website - but the most serious was Aiding the enemy, which carried the possibility of a life sentence.
Prosecutors were charged with proving Manning had 'a general evil intent' and knew the documents and videos he provided to WikiLeaks would be seen by al-Qaeda.
However, anti-secrecy campaigners across the world have praised him for highlighting shadowy U.S. operations abroad.
An Aiding-the- enemy conviction could have set a precedent because Manning did not directly give the classified material to al-Qaeda and WikiLeaks have never confirmed they received the material.
'Most of the aiding-the-enemy charges historically have had to do with POWs who gave information to the Japanese during World War II, or to Chinese communists during Korea, or during the Vietnam War,' Duke law school professor and former Air Force judge advocate Scott Silliman told The Associated Press.
Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. David J.R. Frakt, a visiting professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said a conviction on the most serious charge, if upheld on appeal, 'would essentially create a new way of aiding the enemy in a very indirect fashion, even an unintended fashion.'
Target: A still from a video shot from a U.S. army Apache helicopter showing a group of men in the streets of eastern Baghdad just prior to being fired upon in 2007
'Collateral damage: One of the wounded men dashes for cover as the helicopter pilot urges his colleague to continue firing. He is eventually brought down
'He's just a dumb kid who got himself into a situation where he felt he was saving the world,' Joseph Wippl, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a former CIA officer, told Reuters before the verdict.
WHAT DOES THE MANNING VERDICT MEAN FOR EDWARD SNOWDEN?
- Like Bradley Manning, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden maintains the release of sensitive information was for the benefit of U.S. citizens - but as today's verdict proves, that argument is no defense in the face of espionage charges.
- Manning was convicted on five charges of espionage under a legal rationale similar to the one presented by prosecutors in indicting Snowden under the 1917 Espionage Act. As a result, Manning faces up to 136 years behind bars - and Snowden could expect similar treatment if he returns to the U.S.
- Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy as the government could not prove that he knew the release of the information would find its way to al-Qaeda. While Snowden does not face this charge, it does provide reassurance of the difficulties in proving it.
- But while there are similarities between the Manning and Snowden cases, they are also distinct - in part because of what Snowden learned from the Manning case - and this makes judgments about Snowden's future trickier.First of all, he approached newspapers to publish the information, rather than through Wikileaks, allowing the releases to be more selective. Secondly, after how Manning was treated - arrested and tortured - Snowden learned that avoiding capture made sense and that the way Manning was treated could be used politically. Indeed, when Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that Snowden would not be tortured, it was likely the result of the whistleblower and his supporters referring to the Manning case.
'I think he should be convicted and they should be easy on him. They need to do more on limiting access to classified information,' he added.
The verdict by judge Col. Denise Lind follows about two months of conflicting testimony and evidence.
Manning, a 25-year-old native of Crescent, Oklahoma, admitted to sending more than 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material, including several battlefield video clips, to WikiLeaks while in Iraq in early 2010. WikiLeaks published most of the material online.
The video included footage of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed at least nine men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
Manning claims he selected material that wouldn't harm troops or national security.
Prosecutors called him an anarchist hacker and traitor who indiscriminately leaked classified information he had sworn to protect.
They said al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden obtained copies of some of the documents WikiLeaks published before he was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in 2011.
In bringing the charge against Manning, prosecutors cited the Civil War-era court-martial of Pvt. Henry Vanderwater, a Union soldier convicted in 1863 of aiding the enemy by giving an Alexandria, Va., newspaper a command roster that was then published.
Coombs countered that the Civil War-era cases involved coded messages disguised as advertisements.
He said all modern cases involve military members who gave the enemy information directly.
In closing arguments last week, the defense portrayed Manning as a naive whistleblower who wanted to expose war crimes. Prosecutors call him an anarchist hacker and a traitor.
They characterized him as a a traitor with one mission as an intelligence analyst in Iraq: to find and reveal government secrets to a group of anarchists and bask in the glory as a whistleblower, a prosecutor said last week during closing arguments.
Major Ashden Fein said Manning betrayed his country's trust and gave classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, knowing the material would be seen by Al-Qaeda
Defence: David Coombs, center, civilian attorney for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Coombs said supporters on Friday would hear what truth sounds like
Manning, 25, was not the troubled, naive soldier defense attorneys have made him out to be, Fein said.
He displayed a smiling photo of Manning from 2010 when he was visiting relatives while on leave.
Fein said: 'This is a gleeful, grinning Pfc. Manning' who sent battlefield reports to WikiLeaks, accompanied by the message: 'Have a good day.'
Manning has acknowledged giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and videos in late 2009 and early 2010.
But he says he didn't believe the information would harm troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security.
Three Years in Custody: A Timeline of the Bradley Manning Trial
- Late 2009 - early 2010
- Private First Class Bradley Manning arrives in Baghdad, Iraq and begins downloading classified material to hand to WikiLeaks.
- 2010
- February: Manning hands Julian Assange and WikiLeaks video footage of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack the U.S. carried out on Iraqi insurgents. The footage also shows two employees of Reuters being shot dead
- April: WikiLeaks releases the footage causing a worldwide sensation under the title 'Collateral Murder'
- May 21st: Hacker Adrian Lamo and Manning begin to talk online and the soldier confesses to handing over the footage to WikiLeaks - Lamo contacts authorities.
- May 29th: Bradley Manning is arrested in Baghdad by U.S. Military authorities
- June: Manning is detained at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and allegedly held in an eight-by-eight-foot cafe for a month
- June 6th: The United States files charges against Manning
- July 25th: WikiLeaks releases 'Afghan War Diary' - classified documents that chart the progress of the Afghan campaign from 2004-10
- July 29th: Manning is flown from Kuwait to the United States and held at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia - where he is allegedly held in solitary confinement for nine months
- 2011
- March: Manning receives charges of 22 violations including, 'aiding the enemy'
- April: He is sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is not kept in solitary confinement
- 2012
- January 8th: The judge in Manning's cases does not drop the charges against the Private First Class
- February 3rd: A military investigators says that he will stand trial, preceded by months of pretrial hearings
- 2013
- June 3rd: Bradley Manning's eight-week trial begins in Fort Meade, Maryland
- July 25th: Closing arguments delivered in the dramatic trial
- July 29th: Judge Lind announces the verdict in the trial will be delivered at 1 p.m. on July 30th
Indeed, during the trial it emerged how troubled Manning, who is openly gay, had become.
Coombs told the court that Manning sent a distressed email to his immediate supervisor, Master Sergeant Paul Watkins in 2009 telling him he was suffering from a gender identity disorder and even sent Watkins a picture of himself as a woman.
He even told Watkins his ability to work as an analyst was impaired by his emotional problems.
Fein said Manning relied on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for guidance on what to leak, starting within two weeks of his arrival in Iraq in November 2009.
Referring to a 'Most Wanted Leaks' list the organization published, Fein said WikiLeaks sought almost exclusively information about the U.S.
Federal authorities also are looking into whether Assange can be prosecuted.
He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.
This photo taken on June 16, 2013 shows Ecuadurian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino (R) looking on as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (L) waves from the window of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London
Still, more than three years after Manning's arrest in May 2010, the U.S. intelligence community is reeling again from leaked secrets.
The latest revelations came from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been holed up in the transit area of a Moscow airport for more than a month despite U.S. calls for Russian authorities to turn him over.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has surfaced again as a major player in the newest scandal, this time aiding Snowden in eluding authorities to seek asylum abroad.
The cases of Manning and Snowden illustrate the difficulties of keeping government secrets at a time the Internet makes it easy to disseminate them widely and quickly. In addition, more people are granted access to classified data.
After WikiLeaks published a trove of documents related to the Afghanistan war in 2010, the site launched to international fame, along with its founder, Julian Assange.
'We call those types of people that are willing to risk ... being a martyr for all the rest of us, we call those people heroes,' Assange told CNN's Jake Tapper. 'Bradley Manning is a hero.'
Assange described the case against Manning, specifically the aiding the enemy charge, as a serious attack against investigative journalism.
'It will be the end, essentially, of national security journalism in the United States,' he said on the eve of the verdict.
Assange spoke to CNN from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He is hiding there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sex crimes.
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