Bradley Manning to be sentenced, faces up to 90 years

Pfc. Bradley Manning faces up to 90 years in prison when he is sentenced Wednesday for giving more than 700,000 secret U.S. files to WikiLeaks. Prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow asked for 60 years, arguing Manning endangered lives and hurt diplomatic relations critical to national security. Defense attorney David Coombs asked the military judge, Col. Denise Lind, to be lenient to allow Manning a chance to rehabilitate himself. Coombs said the leaks, however large, had not been proved to be a long-term threat to the country's security. "Long after this information probably is no longer even classified -- if it's still classified -- long after that day has passed, the government still wants Pfc. Manning rotting in a jail cell," Coombs said Monday. Manning avoided a life sentence when Lind acquitted him of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy. Lind said Tuesday she would announce her decision about Manning's sentence at 10 a.m. She made the announcement about 2 1/2 hours into her deliberation. Coombs is expected to appeal Manning's sentence to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, which reviews certain court-martial convictions. An appeal after that would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, composed of five civilian judges appointed by the U.S. president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Coombs said last month he thought it was possible the case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, Manning supporters said. Manning, 25, pleaded guilty Feb. 28 to 10 lesser charges for being WikiLeaks' source for the material, which included videos of a 2007 Baghdad airstrike and a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan in which civilians were killed. The leaked information also included 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. The disclosures were the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public -- much of it published by WikiLeaks or its media partners between April and November 2010.