World

Chelsea Manning shares first picture of herself since release

The portrait shows the 29-year old in a short-cropped hair wearing red lipstick and a dark deep-V-neck sweater

Reuters May 19, 2017

Chelsea Manning, the transgender US Army soldier responsible for a massive leak of classified material, poses in a photo of herself for the first time since she was released from prison and post to social media on May 18, 2017. PHOTO: REUTERS

NEW YORK: Chelsea Manning, the transgender US Army soldier responsible for a massive leak of classified material, shared a photo of herself for the first time since she was released from prison.

The portrait, which Manning shared on her Twitter and Instagram accounts @xychelsea87, shows the 29-year old in a short-cropped hair wearing red lipstick and a dark deep-V-neck sweater. She included the caption: "Okay, so here I am everyone!! #HelloWorld"

Okay, so here I am everyone!! =Phttps://t.co/NuyZlcWfd9 #HelloWorld pic.twitter.com/gKsMFTYukO

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) May 18, 2017

Manning was released from a US military prison on Wednesday, seven years after being arrested for passing secrets to WikiLeaks in the largest breach of classified information in US history.

Newly-freed Chelsea Manning says putting past behind her

Manning was convicted by a court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks, an international organisation that publishes such information from anonymous sources, while she was an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Many on social media congratulated Manning's newfound freedom.