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News > World

Chelsea Manning Suicide Attempt Reported, Lawyers Kept in Dark

  • People call for release of imprisoned WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, CA.

    People call for release of imprisoned WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, CA. | Photo: Reuters

Published 6 July 2016
Opinion

"We're shocked and outraged that ... no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team," said one of Manning's lawyers Wednesday.

U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, imprisoned for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalized, her attorney said Wednesday, after media reports that Manning had attempted to commit suicide.

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One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the news media. Hollander also said the Army failed to connect Manning with her lawyers for a planned phone call on Tuesday, and the earliest Army officials could accommodate a call was Friday morning.

"We're shocked and outraged that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with private confidential medical information about Chelsea Manning yet no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team ," Hollander said in a statement. She said that “the Army gave the excuse—which I now believe to be an outright lie—that the call could not be connected although my team was waiting by the phone.”

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The Army confirmed Manning, 28, a transgender activist, had been released back into custody from the hospital, American Civil Liberties Union Attorney Chase Strangio said. Manning's medical condition was not released.

"Reports of Chelsea's suicide attempt are unconfirmed," Strangio wrote on Twitter. "We just know that she was taken to the hospital and are trying to learn more."

Manning was taken to a hospital near the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, early Tuesday, U.S. Army spokesman Colonel Patrick Seiber said.

CNN, citing Seiber and an unnamed official, reported that she was taken to a hospital after an apparent attempt to take her own life.

Seiber said that officials continue to monitor the inmate's condition.

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Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, is serving a 35-year sentence after a 2013 military court conviction for providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks. It was the biggest breach of classified materials in U.S. history.

Among the files that Manning turned over to WikiLeaks in 2010 was a gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007. A dozen people were killed, including two Reuters news staff.

Manning appealed to an Army court to overturn her court-martial conviction in May .

Her lawyers contend she was held in unlawful pretrial detention for almost a year and that she was excessively charged so she would be exposed to undue punishment. They also argue that the trial judge considered evidence that was not related to the offenses.

The U.N. special rapporteur on torture said in 2012 that Manning was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment by the U.S. military after a two-year investigation

"The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence," wrote the rapporteur Juan Mendez.

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