Chelsea Manning arrested for refusing to testify in court

Chelsea Manning, who leaked thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks, was arrested Friday by a judge for refusing to testify before a grand jury in a court in Virginia, United States, according to media reports.

The former US Army intelligence analyst was held for refusing to answer questions from this grand jury, known for carrying out an investigation into the Australian Julian Assange, famous for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents from the State Department and of the Pentagon through WikiLeaks.

The detainee will remain locked until she reconsiders her position or until this grand jury is dissolved, Judge Claude Hilton of the court in Alexandria warned, quoted by Sparrow Project, a press and communication agency close to Manning.

The ex-analyst, turned into a transgender icon, published a statement on Thursday saying she could go back to prison for contempt.

“A judge will evaluate the legal grounds for my refusal to answer questions in front of a grand jury. The court could conclude that I am responsible for hampering the proper conduct of justice and sentencing me to prison, “said Manning, 31.

In 2010, Private Manning, then named Bradley, leaked to WikiLeaks more than 700,000 confidential documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The former intelligence analyst purged seven of the 35 years to which she was convicted of this leak, thanks to a commutation of sentence granted by the former president of the United States Barack Obama.