Manning Faced With Possible Life in Prison as Sentencing Hearing Begins

The sentencing hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning began Wednesday morning, the day after the army whistleblower was handed a guilty verdict on numerous charges including five counts of espionage that could potentially hold over 100 years in prison.

Judge Col. Denise Lind will now hear arguments from both the prosecution and defense over how much time Manning should spend in jail following the verdict that critics are calling a blow to whistleblower protections and press freedom across the world.

Follow Kevin Gosztola’s live blog for updates or watch live tweets below from journalists and experts following the hearing:

Tweets about “from:kgosztola OR from:Edpilkington OR from:nathanLfuller OR from:carwinb OR from:onearmedmaninc OR from:SaveBradley OR from:@mgsledge OR from:@xeni ”

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Manning, who exposed U.S. war crimes through revealing a trove of U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks, was found guilty on Tuesday of nearly all 21 criminal charges that he had faced in the military court in Fort Meade, Maryland.

The Center for Constitutional Rights blasted the verdict on Tuesday, stating:

Each side will call up to 20 witnesses, meaning the sentencing phase will not conclude today.

_______________________

Click Here: All Blacks Rugby Jersey

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License