Wikileaks whistleblower, Manning seeks to reduce sentence in appeal

Chelsea Manning, who released thousands of classified U.S. military documents to the whistleblower website Wikileaks, has lodged an appeal against her conviction and the length of her sentence.
The 28-year-old was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 for espionage after taking the documents while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq with the U.S. military in January 2010.
In the appeals document dated Wednesday, Manning’s legal team said that the sentence was grossly unfair and unprecedented and should be reduced to 10 years.
The classified documents taken by the then Private Bradley Manning included higher estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq than officially announced.
It also included the voice recording of a helicopter gunner shooting at targets that later turned out to be Reuters journalists.
In the appeal, Mannning’s lawyers said that the trial did not allow her to invoke the public-interest value of the documents.
They also said the testimony by the prosecution included claims of the documents’ harmfulness that were “speculative” and had a “highly prejudicial” effect on the trial. (dpa/NAN)