Chelsea Manning goes before a three-member disciplinary board of the US army on Thursday charged with interfering with the “good order” of the military prison in which she is held by attempting suicide, an offence that could lead to indefinite solitary confinement.



Manning, who is serving 35 years at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for leaking a vast trove of secret documents on the US war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, required hospital treatment after she attempted to kill herself in July. The military authorities generated outrage by responding to the army private’s act of despair by charging her with a number of serious disciplinary counts.

On Wednesday, the campaigning group Fight for the Future posted a copy of the military charge sheet that had been issued against the soldier. It showed that she has been slapped with two category-four counts – among the most serious available – both of which carry a possible sentence of indefinite solitary confinement.

One of those counts said that by attempting suicide Manning had caused the “activation of the Force Cell Move Team” – the disciplinary crew of prison officers who are deployed forcefully to remove inmates from their cells. Yet in accompanying documents also posted by the group, the official report makes clear that Manning did not do anything to resist the force cell move team and she went with them quietly.

The soldier will have to attend Thursday’s disciplinary hearing on her own, without legal representation, in accordance with disciplinary rules. Her lawyer at the ACLU, Chase Strangio, expressed anger at the way the army was handling the fallout from Manning’s suicide attempt.

“You cannot possibly have any consideration for someone’s survival or wellbeing if the response to a suicide attempt is to find the most serious infraction to charge them with,” he said.

Earlier this month, Manning ended a hunger strike after she was granted gender affirming surgery as a transgender woman. She is expected to meet the medical team in charge of the procedure sometime in the next two weeks.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.