Obama shortens sentence of Manning, who gave secrets to WikiLeaks

Chelsea Manning is pictured in this 2010 photograph obtained on August 14, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

TOOK RESPONSIBILITY

Manning, formerly known as US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman. The White House said her sentence would end on May 17 this year.

Manning, who twice tried to kill herself last year and has struggled to cope as a transgender woman in the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, men's military prison, accepted responsibility for leaking the material - a factor that fed into Obama's decision, a White House official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said Obama's decision was rooted in Manning's sentence being longer than sentences given to others who had committed comparable crimes. Obama, who leaves office on Friday and is scheduled to give his final press conference on Wednesday, is expected to discuss his decision then.

WikiLeaks also published emails in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 presidential election that US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence agencies hacked from the Democratic National Committee and the accounts of leading Democrats, part of a campaign to influence the election.

But Obama's decision had nothing to do with the latest WikiLeaks controversy, the White House official said.

"The president's decision to grant clemency and offer commutation to Chelsea Manning was not influenced in any way by public comments from Assange or the WikiLeaks organization," a White House official said on a conference call with reporters.

Assange has been holed up at Ecuador's London embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for the investigation of allegations, which he denies, that he committed rape in 2010. He has said he fears extradition from Sweden to the United States, where there is an open criminal investigation into the activities of WikiLeaks.

Civil rights groups praised the move, calling it overdue.

"Chelsea Manning exposed serious abuses, and as a result her own human rights have been violated by the US government for years," said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA.