A US court refused on Monday to release ex-military analyst Chelsea Manning, who has been detained since March 8 because she refuses to testify against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to whom she transmitted in 2010 a mass of confidential documents. The transgender icon, born a boy named Bradley 31 years ago, had appealed against the decision to incarcerate him for contempt of court. But Virginia's federal appeals court "found no mistake in the district court's decision" and "refuses to release her on bail," three judges said, without saying more about the length of her sentence. continued detention.
Chelsea Manning was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years imprisonment by a court martial for the flight of about 750,000 diplomatic cables and military information, which plunged the United States into embarrassment. Her sentence had been commuted by President Barack Obama and she had been released in May 2017 after seven years in prison, during which she had begun her transition to the female sex.
"I will not participate in a secret process that I morally disapprove"
On March 8, she was sent back to prison after refusing to testify before a grand jury charged with investigating WikiLeaks and its founder. "I will not participate in a secret process that I morally disapprove," she had justified. Key American justice tools, grand juries, citizens' collectives drawn by lot, are tasked with investigating with the utmost confidentiality in the most serious federal criminal cases.
On 11 April, Julian Assange was arrested at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, where he had been a refugee for seven years, following a request for extradition from the United States. In the aftermath, the US Department of Justice revealed that the 47-year-old Australian had been indicted a year earlier by the grand jury before which Chelsea Manning refuses to testify. For the defenders of Chelsea Manning, this proves that her incarceration is "useless" and only aims to punish her a second time for the 2010 escape.