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Bradley Manning Case:The US soldier explain his reasons for revealing military and diplomatic secrets / US News

United States government has released a small portion of the thousands of pages of courtroom documents from the case against alleged WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Private Bradley Manning will answer questions later on Thursday from the judge who is considering whether to accept his offer to plead guilty to some lesser charges.

His only public explanation until now for giving the secret documents to Julian Assange’s anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website can be found in logs of an online chat with a confidant-turned-government informant.

In those chats, the 25-year-old wrote that he engineered the leak because “information should be free” and he wanted “people to see the truth”.

Manning is due to argue that he acted from a “noble motive”, according to a news release from his supporters.

Even if a judge accepts his guilty plea, prosecutors can still pursue more serious charges against him, including “aiding the enemy”, which carries a potential life sentence.

The US Army published 84 pre-trial documents online on Wednesday related to the case, after media outlets and other groups had criticised a lack of transparency.

The documents had been sealed based on requests either by the prosecution or defence lawyers.

They are the first of about 500 that the Pentagon said it will release in response to Freedom of Information requests.

Supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning protest during his scheduled motion hearing, outside the gates of Fort Meade, Maryland November 27, 2012.
Supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning protest during his scheduled motion hearing, outside the gates of Fort Meade, Maryland November 27, 2012.

In federal civilian court, similar types of documents are nearly always made public.

Manning was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst near Baghdad and subsequently charged over the massive leak of restricted documents.

He has been held mainly in solitary confinement since.

His trial at Fort Meade in Maryland is expected to begin in June.

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