Outgoing President Obama commutes 35-year sentence of Chelsea Manning convicted of leaking classified docs to Wikileaks

Outgoing US President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, an army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses after disclosing to WikiLeaks. Manning had stolen and disseminated 750,000 pages of sensitive diplomatic documents and videos to whistle-blower WikiLeaks.

The sentence of 29-year-old American military analyst will now end on May 17 instead of her scheduled 2045 release, the White House announced.

The leak being one of the largest breaches of classified material in US history, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in 2013 for her role.

While commuting the sentence, President Obama overruled his Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter's objections and immediately touched off a controversy in the closing days of the Obama administration, US media reported.

Manning has been imprisoned since August 2013. She also attempted suicide twice last year.

According to the White House, Manning's offences included one specification of wrongful and wanton publication to the internet intelligence belonging to the US, five specifications of stealing, purloining or knowingly converting US government records.

Manning was convicted of passing on sensitive information pertaining to messages between US diplomats, intelligence assessments of Guantanamo detainees being held without trial and military records from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With PTI Inputs