Chelsea Manning set to release on May 17 after Obama grants clemency

dynamitenews.com
Washington D.C./ 18 January 2017. United States President Barack Obama has commuted the sentence of former U.S. army soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who was convicted to 35 years imprisonment for leaking thousands of US government documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning will now be released on May 17, this year instead of her scheduled release in 2045 as originally sentenced.

She was serving her year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, an all-male army prison in eastern Kansas, despite her request to transfer to a civilian prison.

Julian Assange had earlier this month offered to agree to a US extradition request if the commutation was granted to Manning.

The President also pardoned a retired Marine Corps general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright, who pleaded guilty of making false statements to federal investigators in 2012 about leaking top secret information on US efforts to cripple Iran's nuclear program to two journalists. (ANI)