The former intelligence analyst, who has been jailed for refusing to testify in WikiLeaks investigation, is ‘safe’ and ‘recovering’

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Chelsea Manning, the former US army intelligence analyst who leaked hundreds of thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, tried to kill herself in a Virginia jail on Wednesday, legal representatives said.

According to the Alexandria sheriff’s department, officials at the Alexandria adult detention center responded to an incident at 12.11pm.

“It was handled appropriately by our professional staff and Ms Manning is safe,” Sheriff Dana Lawhorne said.

No other details of the incident were immediately made available.

The news came days before a hearing regarding Manning’s request to be released.

Manning has been held on grounds of civil contempt since May last year, for refusing to testify in front of a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks, which disseminated the cables and files leaked by Manning to outlets including the Guardian in 2010.

Manning served six years in military prison for the 2010 leak, until Barack Obama commuted her 35-year sentence. While in jail, for long stretches in solitary confinement and while completing gender realignment, Manning attempted suicide twice. She also mounted a hunger strike.

In a statement on Wednesday, Manning’s representatives said she “has previously indicated that she will not betray her principles, even at risk of grave harm to herself.

“Her actions today evidence the strength of her convictions, as well as the profound harm she continues to suffer as a result of her ‘civil’ confinement.”

In court in 2019, after an initial spell behind bars over the contempt issue and before being returned to prison, Manning told a judge she would “rather starve to death” than testify.

In 2018, Manning ran for the US Senate in Maryland. The attempt to unseat the longtime Democratic senator Ben Cardin failed and later that year, Manning told the Guardian the experience had driven her “closer and closer to being on the edge of really deep, dark depression”.

She also said she had been “exhausted” when, in May 2018, she tweeted a picture apparently showing her standing on a ledge outside a window several floors from the ground, shortly before telling followers she was OK.

In February this year, Manning petitioned for release. In a letter to Judge Anthony J Trenga, she compared her experience with the Trump administration’s attitude towards congressional subpoenas.

“The attorney general was in contempt of a congressional subpoena but faced no consequences,” Manning wrote. “The president has been instructing his associates not to comply with grand jury subpoenas and witness subpoenas for at least two years, and has even fired people for their compliance with subpoenas.

“It is clear that the rules are different for different people.”

In fact, though the Trump administration has fought congressional subpoenas, officials refusing to appear in front of federal or state grand juries would still face punishment for contempt of court.

Manning also wrote that she had been “separated from my loved ones, deprived of sunlight, and could not even attend my mother’s funeral.

“It is easier to endure these hardships now,” she wrote, “than to cooperate to win back some comfort, and live the rest of my life knowing that I acted out of self-interest and not principle.”

A hearing on her petition was scheduled for Friday.

An extradition hearing for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is in process in London. In the US, he is charged with violating the Espionage Act.