Wikileaks Boy To Bag Up To 90 Years Jail Term

Bradley Edward Manning is a United States Army soldier who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed classified material to the website WikiLeaks. The soldier will be told at 10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday how much of his life will be spent in a military prison, a U.S. Army spokesman said on Tuesday.

The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, began deliberating Manning's sentence on Tuesday and later told the court that sentencing would take place at 10 a.m., the spokesman said.

Manning, a 25-year-old private first class, could face as up to 90 years in prison for giving more than 700,000 classified files, battlefield videos and diplomatic cables to the pro-transparency website.

Prosecutors asked for 60 years, while the defense asked the judge not to rob him of his youth.

Manning, who was a low-level intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2010 when he handed over the documents, was convicted in July on 20 counts including espionage and theft.

He was found not guilty on the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which had carried a possible sentence of life in prison without parole.

The classified material that shocked many around the world was a 2007 gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Baghdad. A dozen people were killed, including two Reuters news staff, and WikiLeaks dubbed the footage "Collateral Murder."

The release of the documents catapulted WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, to the international spotlight and heightened a debate on government secrecy. A U.S. rights group has said Manning should be a candidate for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Prosecutors have contended that when Manning turned over the secret documents he had put national security, including overseas intelligence operatives, at risk.