Who is Chelsea Manning and why was she jailed?

EX-ARMY intelligence analyst and WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning has again been released from prison.

Here, we look at the rollercoaster battle of Manning, who was convicted of leaking secret documents in 2013 but then had her sentence commuted by former US President Barack Obama.

Who is Chelsea Manning?

Chelsea Manning, 32, is a former intelligence analyst who was last year incarcerated for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.

Manning said she opposed the grand jury system on general principle and would rather starve to death than testify.

A year later, on March 12, US District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning's release from her second bout in jail after prosecutors reported that the grand jury which subpoenaed her has disbanded.

The Alexandria sheriff's office in Virginia confirmed Thursday night that Manning had been released.

She had originally served seven years in a military prison for leaking a trove of documents to WikiLeaks.

What information did Chelsea Manning leak to WikiLeaks?

Manning first made contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in January 2010 - but the pair have never met.

The whistleblower leaked more than 700,000 classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This included 251,287 diplomatic cables from foreign embassies and 482,232 Army reports.

The leak contained a July 2007 video clip of a US helicopter crew killing 12 people including Saeed Chmagh and Namir Nour-Eldeen, who were Iraqi journalists with the Reuters news agency.

After the lead helicopter opens fire, one of the crew is heard to say: "Hahaha. I hit 'em."

One of the cables revealed then UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband helped the US avoid a ban on cluster bombs.

Another report exposed how American troops executed 10 Iraqi civilians including an infant and 70-year-old woman before calling an air strike to destroy the evidence.

Manning eventually confided in Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance, about leaking the documents.

Within weeks of Lamo informing United States Army Counterintelligence, Manning was arrested near Baghdad, thrown into a military prison and held behind bars for three years until her trial in 2013.

When was Chelsea Manning jailed?

Manning was charged with 22 offences, of which she pleaded guilty to ten.

In 2013, her court-martial began and she was imprisoned after eventually being found guilty on 20 counts.

This included violations of the Espionage Act, but she was acquitted of aiding the enemy - a charge which can result in the death penalty.

A military judge sentenced her to 35 years' prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

In January 2017, however, President Obama announced Manning would have her sentence commuted, and she was released from prison in May that same year.

Fast forward to early 2019, and she was back behind bars serving an indefinite sentence.

A federal judge caged her for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.

Federal prosecutors alleged in an unsealed court filing that Assange and Manning had reason to believe that leaking US military reports "would cause injury" to the country.