The civilian lawyer for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has revealed that his client is willing to plead guilty to several lesser charges in the WikiLeaks case.
Manning, 24, is accused of illegally downloading and then leaking sensitive military documents to the website WikiLeaks, when he served as a military intelligence analyst in Iraq, according to CNN. Manning has been in jail for more than two years on these charges.
Manning attorney Attorney David Coombs wrote on his blog:
PFC Manning has offered to plead guilty to various offenses through a process known as "pleading by exceptions and substitutions."
To clarify, PFC Manning is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government. Rather, PFC Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses.
The Court will consider whether this is a permissible plea.
