Just days before US President-Elect Donald Trump takes over as the next US President, outgoing President Barack Obama has issued a statement stating that the US government has commuted the sentence of transgender soldier Chelsea Manning and that she would go free this year itself on May 17.
Manning, who is currently serving 35 years prison sentence, was found guilty of espionage in August 2013 as she gave out US’s classified data and documents to Wikileaks.
The US court had sentenced her to 35 years in imprisonment, but President Obama thought that she has suffered enough and allowed her to go free nearly three decades early.
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Obama’s commutation was issued yesterday on January 17, 2017, and states that Manning would be released in four months on May 17.
Manning is a transgender soldier who was a military analyst in the US Army. She had was sentenced on charges of stealing, purloining or knowingly converting US government classified records and passing it to Wiki Leaks.
Besides Manning, Obama also pardoned 64 other individuals, including retired Gen. James Cartwright, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the federal authorities.
