Private Bradley Manning, the whistleblower tried for violating US espionage laws, was acquitted on Tuesday by a US military judge on the most serious charge that he knowingly aided the enemy in the Wikileaks case.
But he could face up to 136 years in prison for his conviction on lesser charges of theft and espionage.
The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, found Manning guilty on 20 of 22 charges that had been brought against the 25-year-old soldier, according to the final tally released by the US Army.
Manning has admitted to lifting an estimated 700,000 classified diplomatic and military documents from the US government system and offering them to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organisation.
Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, called the verdict “a huge, huge victory.” “Today is a good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire,” Coombs said, according to NBC News.
Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy internet organisation WikiLeaks that published the documents lifted by Manning, condemned the judgement.
“The administration is intent on deterring and silencing whistleblowers, intent on weakening freedom of the press,” Assange charged in a statement. He said the only victim in the trial was the “US government’s wounded pride.” Manning, who has become a cause celebre and hero of freedom of information advocates on the internet in the three years since his arrest, gathered the documents when he worked as a US Army intelligence analyst in Iraq.
His defence attorney argued that he was young and naive, with “good intentions” of informing the American and world public of government misdeeds.
Government prosecutors portrayed him as a disloyal, self-centred anarchist who intended to help the enemy.
Had Lind found Manning guilty of aiding the enemy, he would have faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The second “not guilty” ruling applied to a video that was released of the May 4, 2009, US “Garani” airstrike in the south-western Afghan province of Farah, which resulted in the deaths of 140 civilians, according to an official Afghan investigation.
Judge Lind indicated that it had not been proved that Manning had released the video in November 2009, but ruled him guilty of releasing the same video in 2010.
The sentencing phase could begin as early as Wednesday. More witnesses could be called as prosecution and defence lawyers negotiate over the length of punishment for each conviction – and whether they will be served consecutively or concurrently.
The verdict follows months of pre-trial hearings and eight weeks of intense testimony and argument in the military court at Fort Meade, Maryland just north of Washington, DC.
Reactions on Court’s verdict
Reporters Without Borders, a journalism advocacy group, called the verdicts a “dangerous” threat to “the future of investigative journalism.” Manning’s family said it was “disappointed” in the verdicts but also relieved over the two acquittals.
“We are happy that Judge Lind agreed with us that Brad never intended to help America’s enemies in any way,” the statement published by the Guardian newspaper read.
The trial highlighted the Obama administration’s unprecedented hunt for and prosecution of government employees who leak information to the press. Earlier this year, the Justice Department provoked a huge uproar with its seizure of Associated Press phone records.
The guilty verdicts could set a precedent for at least one other leak case, that of Edward Snowden, a technical expert who worked under contract to the National Security Agency and unveiled the government’s extensive surveillance of the US’s private phone system.
Snowden has been stranded at a Moscow airport for weeks and could receive asylum in Russia. The US has cancelled his passport and charged him with espionage, and is demanding that Russia send him back to the US despite the absence of an extradition treaty.
Manning pleaded guilty in February to some of the lesser criminal counts, but disputed that he knowingly aided the enemy or knew that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda would make use of the material which was posted on Wikileaks.
Some of the WikiLeaks material was found on a computer at the late Osama bin Laden’s terrorist hideaway in Pakistan.
Assange is in his own legal hot water as he holes up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and fights extradition by Britain to Sweden. Swedish authorities want him in connection with allegations of sexual assault there.
Assange has expressed fear that if he is extradited to Sweden, he could end up facing charges in the United States.