KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Chelsea Manning, the transgender soldier imprisoned for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks, is scheduled to be released Wednesday from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
The Army and Manning’s attorneys confirmed that Manning will be released. The Army has said Manning will remain an active-duty, unpaid soldier and be eligibile for health care coverage and other benefits.
Manning thanked Obama, who granted her clemency in the final days of his presidency. Manning also said letters of support from fellow transgender individuals and veterans were inspirational.
“For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea,” Manning said in the statement. “I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world. Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine.”
A former intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning was convicted in 2013 of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents and battlefield video. Manning served nearly seven years of a 35-year sentence at Leavenworth.
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