PARIS British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday in response to a U.S. extradition request, and a U.S. federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to disclose classified information that could be used to injure the United States.

Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a standoff that lasted nearly seven years.

The frail-looking WikiLeaks founder, with white hair and a long beard, was carried head first out of the embassy by at least seven men to a waiting police van, after shouting This is unlawful, Im not leaving.

Londons Metropolitan Police said in a statement that Assange was arrested on behalf of the United States authorities and would appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court as soon as possible. British police originally sought custody of Assange for jumping bail after Sweden requested his extradition in a separate case stemming from sexual assault allegations.

In an indictment unsealed hours later, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and other conspirators to publish secret military and diplomatic documents that Manning had collected.

Jennifer Robinson, Assanges lawyer, said on Twitter before the unsealing that her client was arrested not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to a US extradition request.

British Prime Minister Theresa May greeted the news in Parliament.

The whole House will welcome the news this morning that the Metropolitan Police have arrested Julian Assange, arrested for breach of bail after nearly seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy, May said to cheers and cries of Hear, hear! from lawmakers.

Britains Home Office said in a statement that Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States, where he is accused . . . of computer related offences.

The U.S. indictment unsealed Thursday accuses Assange of agreeing to help Manning break a password to the Defense Departments computer network in 2010. That, prosecutors alleged, would have allowed Manning to log in with another username. The indictment includes no evidence that the password-cracking effort actually succeeded.

Even before the password cracking, though, Manning had given WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified records, prosecutors alleged. The material allegedly included four nearly complete databases, comprising 90,000 reports from the Afghanistan war, 400,000 reports from the Iraq war and 250,000 State Department cables.

Robinson told The Washington Post that Assange met Thursday morning with the Ecuadoran ambassador, who notified him that his asylum was being revoked. Then the Metropolitan Police were invited in to the embassy, where they arrested him, the lawyer for Assange said.

Robinson confirmed that the U.S. indictment was issued in December 2017 on a charge of conspiracy with Chelsea Manning dating to 2010. Manning was imprisoned for seven years for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses after turning over hundreds of thousands of classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

Video of the arrest showed a gray-bearded Assange being pulled by British police officers down the steps of the embassy and shoved into a waiting police van. Assange appeared to be physically resisting. His hands were secured in front of him, but he appeared to be clutching a copy of Gore Vidals History of the National Security State.

Appearing before the London court, Assange said he was not guilty of failing to surrender to court in 2012, but his lawyer said Assange would not give evidence. Minutes later the judge convicted him of skipping bail. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Ecuador, which took Assange in when he was facing a Swedish rape investigation in 2012, said it was rescinding asylum because of his discourteous and aggressive behavior and for violating the terms of his asylum.

The British government heralded the development. Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law, Jeremy Hunt, Britains foreign secretary, wrote on Twitter. He has hidden from the truth for years.

Hunt said it was Assange who was holding the Ecuadoran Embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them.

Sweden dropped its sex crimes inquiry in May 2017 Assange had always denied the allegations.

After his arrest, the Swedish lawyer representing the alleged victim in the rape investigation said that she would push to have prosecutors reopen the probe.

My client and I have just received the news that Assange has been arrested. The fact that what we have been waiting and hoping for nearly seven years is now happening, of course, comes as a shock to my client, Elisabeth Massi Fritz said.

We will do all we can to get prosecutors to reopen the Swedish preliminary criminal investigation so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and be prosecuted for rape, she said in a text message.

But, more than anything, he fears extradition to the United States, which has been investigating him for espionage, the publication of sensitive government documents and coordination with Russia.

Londons Metropolitan Police carried out the Thursday morning arrest and said in a statement that they were invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian governments withdrawal of asylum. In response, the Russian government accused Britain of strangling freedom by taking custody of Assange.

Ecuador has sovereignly decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012, Moreno said in a video statement tweeted by the countrys communications department. The asylum of Mr. Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable.

The Ecuadoran president specifically cited Assanges involvement in what he described as WikiLeaks meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, referring to the leaking of documents from the Vatican in January.

Mr. Assange violated, repeatedly, clear-cut provisions of the conventions on diplomatic asylum of Havana and Caracas, despite the fact that he was requested on several occasions to respect and abide by these rules, Moreno said Thursday. He particularly violated the norm of not intervening in the internal affairs of other states. The most recent incident occurred in January 2019 when WikiLeaks leaked Vatican documents.

Key members of that organization visited Mr. Assange before and after such illegal acts, Moreno said. This and other publications have confirmed the worlds suspicion that Mr. Assange is still linked to WikiLeaks and therefore involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states.

WikiLeaks confirmed Assanges arrested and used the occasion as a fundraising opportunity on Twitter.

This man is a son, a father, a brother, the group said in a tweet, above a headshot of Assange. He has won dozens of journalism awards. Hes been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 2010. Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimize and imprison him.

The group had earlier threatened long-term consequences if Ecuador turned Assange over to the British. If President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publishers asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

From Moscow, fugitive American former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden described the scene of Assanges arrest as a violation of press freedom. Images of Ecuadors ambassador inviting the UKs secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of like it or not award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books, Snowden wrote on Twitter. Assanges critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.

Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement: Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the publics interest.

Ahead of the U.S. election in 2016, WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, in cyber-hacks that U.S. intelligence officials concluded were orchestrated by the Russian government.

When special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers, he charged that they discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with WikiLeaks referred to as Organization 1 in the indictment to heighten their impact on the 2016 presidential election.

But Assange has been on U.S. prosecutors radar since 2010, when WikiLeaks publication of 250,000 diplomatic cables and hundreds of thousands of military documents from the Iraq War prompted denunciations by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and senior Pentagon officials.

The Army private who had passed the material to WikiLeaks, Manning, was tried, convicted and served seven years of a 35-year prison term before having her sentence commuted by President Barack Obama as he left office. She was jailed again last month for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Assange.

In the last administration, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. decided against pursuing prosecution of Assange out of concern that WikiLeaks argument that it is a journalistic organization would raise thorny First Amendment issues and set an unwelcome precedent.

The Trump administration, however, revisited the question of prosecuting members of WikiLeaks, and last November a court filing error revealed that Assange had been charged under seal.

Some federal prosecutors say a case can be made that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic organization. As if to lay the groundwork for such an argument, in April 2017, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, characterized WikiLeaks as a nonstate hostile intelligence service and a threat to U.S. national security.

Pompeo also noted then that the intelligence communitys report concluding Russia interfered in the 2016 election also found that Russias primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.

Assanges expulsion from Ecuadors embassy reflects a shift in the countrys politics since it first extended refuge to him.

Another hint that Assange was wearing out his welcome came in March 2018, when Ecuador cut off his Internet access, saying he had breached an agreement not to interfere in the affairs of other states. The embassy did not specify what Assange had done, but the move came after he tweeted criticism of Britains assessment that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the city of Salisbury.

Ecuador imposed tighter house rules last fall. Among the demands were that Assange pay for his medical and phone bills and clean up after his cat.

Nakashima reported from Washington and Adam from London. The Washington Posts Anthony Faiola in Miami and Rachel Weiner and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.

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PARIS British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday in response to a U.S. extradition request, and a U.S. federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to disclose classified information that could be used to injure the United States.

Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a standoff that lasted nearly seven years.

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Londons Metropolitan Police said a statement that Assange was arrested on behalf of the United States authorities and would appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court as soon as possible. British police originally sought custody of Assange for jumping bail after Sweden requested his extradition in a separate case stemming from sexual assault allegations.

In an indictment unsealed hours later, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and other conspirators to publish secret military and diplomatic documents that Manning had collected.

Jennifer Robinson, Assanges lawyer, said on Twitter before the unsealing that her client was arrested not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to a US extradition request.

Britains Home Office said in a statement that Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States, where he is accused ... of computer related offences.

The U.S. indictment unsealed Thursday accuses Assange of agreeing to help Manning break a password to the Defense Departments computer network in 2010. That, prosecutors alleged, would have allowed Manning to log in with another username. The indictment includes no evidence that the password-cracking effort actually succeeded.

Even before the password cracking, though, Manning had given WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified records, prosecutors alleged. The material allegedly included four nearly complete databases, comprising 90,000 reports from the Afghanistan war, 400,000 reports from the Iraq war and 250,000 State Department cables.

Robinson told The Washington Post that Assange met this morning with the Ecuadoran ambassador, who notified him that his asylum was being revoked. Then the Metropolitan Police were invited in to the embassy, where they arrested him, the lawyer for Assange said.

She confirmed that the U.S. indictment was issued in December 2017 on a charge of conspiracy with Chelsea Manning dating to 2010. Manning was imprisoned for seven years for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses after turning over hundreds of thousands of classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

Video of the arrest showed a gray-bearded Assange being pulled by British police officers down the steps of the embassy and shoved into a waiting police van. Assange appeared to be physically resisting. His hands were secured in front of him, but he appeared to be clutching a copy of Gore Vidal's History of the National Security State.

Ecuador, which took Assange in when he was facing a Swedish rape investigation in 2012, said it was rescinding asylum because of his discourteous and aggressive behavior and for violating the terms of his asylum.

The British government heralded the development. Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law, Jeremy Hunt, Britains foreign secretary, wrote on Twitter. He has hidden from the truth for years.

Hunt said it was Assange who was holding the Ecuadoran Embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them. He added: So this will now be decided properly, independently by the British legal system respected throughout the world for its independence and integrity, and that is the right outcome.

He said Britain and Ecuador have been talking for a very long time about how to resolve this situation. He praised Ecuadoran President Lenn Moreno for making a courageous decision, which has meant we were able to resolve the situation today. Hunt said that what is not acceptable is for someone to escape facing justice, and [Assange] has tried to do that for a very long time, and that is why he is no hero.

Sweden dropped its sex crimes inquiry in May 2017 Assange had always denied the allegations. But he still faces up to a year in prison in Britain for jumping bail in 2012.

And, more than anything, he fears extradition to the United States, which has been investigating him for espionage, the publication of sensitive government documents and coordination with Russia.

London's Metropolitan Police carried out the Thursday morning arrest and said in a statement that they were invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian governments withdrawal of asylum. In response, the Russian government accused Britain of strangling freedom by taking custody of Assange.

Ecuador has sovereignly decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012, Moreno said in a video statement tweeted by the countrys communications department. The asylum of Mr. Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable.

The Ecuadoran president specifically cited Assanges involvement in what he described as WikiLeaks meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, referring to the leaking of documents from the Vatican in January.

Mr. Assange violated, repeatedly, clear-cut provisions of the conventions on diplomatic asylum of Havana and Caracas, despite the fact that he was requested on several occasions to respect and abide by these rules, Moreno said Thursday. He particularly violated the norm of not intervening in the internal affairs of other states. The most recent incident occurred in January 2019 when WikiLeaks leaked Vatican documents.

Key members of that organization visited Mr. Assange before and after such illegal acts, Moreno said. This and other publications have confirmed the worlds suspicion that Mr. Assange is still linked to WikiLeaks and therefore involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states.

WikiLeaks confirmed Assanges arrested and used the occasion as a fundraising opportunity on Twitter.

This man is a son, a father, a brother, the group said in a tweet, above a headshot of Assange. He has won dozens of journalism awards. Hes been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 2010. Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimize and imprison him.

The group had earlier threatened long-term consequences if Ecuador turned Assange over to the British. If President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publishers asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

From Moscow, fugitive American former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden described the scene of Assanges arrest as a violation of press freedom. Images of Ecuadors ambassador inviting the UKs secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of like it or not award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books, Snowden wrote on Twitter. Assanges critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.

Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement: Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the publics interest.

Barry Pollack, Assanges U.S.-based attorney, said that while the indictment charges Assange with conspiracy to commit computer crimes, the factual allegations against him boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identify of that source. Pollack added in a statment: Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.

Ahead of the U.S. election in 2016, WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, in cyber-hacks that U.S. intelligence officials concluded were orchestrated by the Russian government.

While he was campaigning for president, Donald Trump repeatedly expressed appreciation for WikiLeaks publication of stolen emails damaging to Clintons campaign.

WikiLeaks I love WikiLeaks! he said in October 2016 at a rally in Pennsylvania, waving a report on the latest disclosures. Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks, Trump said a few days before the election after a new dump of emails.

When special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers, he charged that they discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with WikiLeaks referred to as Organization 1 in the indictment to heighten their impact on the 2016 presidential election.

Among the former Trump aides indicted as a result of Muellers investigation was Roger Stone, a longtime friend of Trumps who was accused of lying, obstruction and witness tampering. His indictment charged that he sought to gather information about hacked Democratic Party emails at the direction of an unidentified senior Trump campaign official.

Assange has been on U.S. prosecutors radar since 2010, when WikiLeaks publication of 250,000 diplomatic cables and hundreds of thousands of military documents from the Iraq War prompted denunciations by then-Secretary of State Clinton and senior Pentagon officials.

The Army private who had passed the material to WikiLeaks, Manning, was tried, convicted and served seven years of a 35-year prison term before having her sentence commuted by President Barack Obama as he left office. She was jailed again last month for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Assange.

In the last administration, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided against pursuing prosecution of Assange out of concern that WikiLeaks argument that it is a journalistic organization would raise thorny First Amendment issues and set an unwelcome precedent.

The Trump administration, however, revisited the question of prosecuting members of WikiLeaks, and last November a court filing error revealed that Assange had been charged under seal.

Some federal prosecutors say a case can be made that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic organization. As if to lay the groundwork for such an argument, in April 2017, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, characterized WikiLeaks as a nonstate hostile intelligence service and a threat to U.S. national security.

Pompeo also noted then that the intelligence communitys report concluding Russia interfered in the 2016 election also found that Russias primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.

Assanges expulsion from Ecuadors embassy reflects a shift in the countrys politics since it first extended refuge to him.

Leftist former president Rafael Correa, now living in Belgium, is wanted for arrest in his homeland over alleged links to a 2012 political kidnapping. Correa was viewed as a member of an anti-Washington gaggle of South American leaders, including Venezuelas Nicols Maduro and Bolivias Evo Morales. He kicked out the U.S. ambassador in 2011.

The more moderate Moreno, in sharp contrast, has sought to mend frayed ties with the United States, Ecuadors largest trading partner, and has dismissed Assange as a stone in my shoe.

In June 2018, Vice President Pence visited Quito, the capital, as part of the most senior U.S. delegation sent to Ecuador in years.

Our nations had experienced 10 difficult years where our people always felt close but our governments drifted apart, Pence said. But over the past year, Mr. President, thanks to your leadership and the actions that youve taken have brought us closer together once again. And you have the appreciation of President Trump and the American people.

Sebastin Hurtado is president of Prfitas, a political consulting firm in Quito.

I think the president has never been comfortable with Assange in the embassy, he said. And its not like this is an important issue for most Ecuadorans. To be honest, we really dont care about Assange.

The Moreno administration had made no secret of its desire to unload the issue. In December 2017, it granted Ecuadoran citizenship to Australian-born Assange and then petitioned Britain to allow him diplomatic immunity. The British government refused, saying the way to resolve the stalemate was for Assange to face justice.

Another hint that Assange was wearing out his welcome came in March 2018, when Ecuador cut off his Internet access, saying he had breached an agreement not to interfere in the affairs of other states. The embassy did not specify what Assange had done, but the move came after he tweeted criticism of Britains assessment that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the city of Salisbury.

Ecuador imposed tighter house rules last fall. Among the demands were that Assange pay for his medical and phone bills and clean up after his cat.

Nakashima reported from Washington and Adam from London. Anthony Faiola in Miami and Rachel Weiner and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.

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Assange accused of conspiring with Chelsea Manning in 2010 ...

Supporters of Bradley Manning demonstrate outside FBI headquarters in Washington in 2011.(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)

Bradley Manning's ardent supporters argue passionately that the 35-year prison sentence dealt Wednesday to the secret-leaking Army private is wildly disproportionate to his crime.

Manning, they say, acted out of patriotism exposing war crimes and other vital information that the military was hiding from the public, not from the enemy. No previous leaker, military or civilian, has been sentenced to more than two years, they note, and soldiers who committed violent crimes in Iraq have received lesser punishment.

Those claims are accurate, and if Manning were to spend 35 years in prison, the critics would have a compelling case. But that is rarely how the criminal justice system works, either in the military or in civilian life. With rare exceptions notably the death penalty and life without parole a sentence's headline number is not the one that counts. Maximum sentences arepaired with minimums, which can be further reduced for good behavior or other reasons. Manning's minimum is 10 years, of which he has already served three.

Even that much is stern punishment for someone who is not a spy. But excessive? Not if measured by the damage Manning did or the consequences if he had been set free. The court couldn't possibly have let the private walk without inviting others in the military to make their own judgments about what should be secret and what should not.

Nor were Manning's actions harmless. Purity of motive aside, he put people in danger and indiscriminately exposed a host of secrets that damaged U.S. interests abroad.

Manning used his security clearance to copy and release more than 700,000 classified files through an irresponsible organization, WikiLeaks. Some of that information such as video of a helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed civilians was material the public deserved to see. It painted a fuller picture of the war in Iraq. But Manning thoughtlessly dumped much more, including 250,000 diplomatic cables that jeopardized U.S. information sources and exposed details of U.S. activity abroad that would have been better left confidential.

Like Edward Snowden, Manning felt compelled to expose injustice but lacked the wisdom or perhaps the means to do it in a productive way. He can't escape punishment for the consequences of his actions. To his credit, he seems to accept that fact.

"I will serve my time knowing that sometimes, you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society," said his statement in response to sentencing.

Yes, you do, particularly if you do it in a destructive way.

But as time passes and Manning fades from public view, courts would do well to keep in mind Manning's willingness to sacrifice himself for a greater good. It is evidence of honor, even if not in the conventional form the military preaches.

Ten years in prison, if that's what Manning serves, is more than enough punishment to deter others from following his path, and depending on his future behavior, perhaps a bit too much for a well-intentioned act of foolishness.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view a unique USA TODAY feature.

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Chelsea Manning was jailed for contempt in Alexandria, Virginia after refusing to provide information about WikiLeaks to a grand jury.(Photo: Handout)

WASHINGTON Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who spent four years in prison for providing information to WikiLeaks, was jailed Friday after she refused to testify before a grand jury investigating the anti-secrecy group.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning into custody following a brief hearing that was partially closed to the public. Manning had warned that she objected to the grand jury's inquiry and said she would refuse to cooperate.

"In solidarity with many activists facing the odds, I will stand by my principles," Manning said in a statement before Friday's hearing. "I will exhaust every legal remedy available."

Manning, who divulged massive amounts of information to WikiLeaks, had her sentence commuted Tuesday by President Obama. USA TODAY NETWORK

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 for her role in leaking a cache of classified government material to WikiLeaks. Her case attracted heightened attention because of her status as a transgender soldier; at the time she was known as Bradley Manning. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.

Chelsea Manning: Manning to be barred from Australia, event organizer says

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More: Harvard withdraws invitation to Chelsea Manning to be a visiting fellow amid backlash

In refusing to testify this week, Manning claimed that she had already provided the government "extensive testimony" during her 2013 prosecution.

Manning's attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, declined to comment Friday on the information the government isseeking.

But last year, federal prosecutors in the same Virginia district inadvertently disclosed in court documents that criminal charges had been filed under seal against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,

In this file photo taken on May 24, 2018, former US soldier Chelsea Manning speaks during the C2 conference in Montreal, Quebec.(Photo: Lars Hagberg, AFP/Getty Images)

Assange, fearing arrest, has been living in exile in London's Ecuadoran embassy since 2012.

On Friday, Manning's lawyers asked that she be confined at home to accommodate her medical needs and ensure her safety, but Hilton rejected that request. Manning was sent to a jail in Alexandria, Virginia.

Meltzer-Cohen said Manning could be held for up 18 months, which represents the typical length of a grand jury term.

"We were every concerned and remain concerned that a jail or prison is not equipped to handle" Manning's needs, Meltzer-Cohen said. "I think we all know that a lot of things could go wrong."

Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne said Mannings arrival and booking process were "routine.

"Specific details about Ms. Mannings confinement will not be made public due to security and privacy concerns," Lawhorne said. "We will work closely with the U.S. Marshals to ensure her proper care while she remains at our facility.

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Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to jury on ...

FORT MEADE, Md. The court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, whose secret release of a vast archive of military and diplomatic materials put WikiLeaks into an international spotlight, opened here Monday with dueling portrayals of a traitor who endangered the lives of his fellow soldiers and of a principled protester motivated by a desire to help society who carefully selected which documents to release.

The contrast between the governments description of Private Manning and his lawyers underscored the oddity at the heart of the trial, which is expected to last as long as 12 weeks: There is no doubt that he did most of what he is accused of doing, and the crucial issue is how those actions should be understood.

In February, Private Manning pleaded guilty to nine lesser versions of the charges he is facing and one full one while confessing in detail to releasing the trove of documents for which he could be sentenced to up to 20 years.

But his plea was not part of any deal and prosecutors are going to trial because they hope to convict him, based on essentially the same facts, of 20 more serious offenses including espionage and aiding the enemy that could result in a life sentence.

Since his arrest three years ago, Private Manning, 25, has been embraced as a whistle-blower and hero by many on the political left, including Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers four decades ago. On Monday, dozens of supporters demonstrated in the rain outside the bases main entrance, many holding placards with his picture.

His case has inspired social media activism that has helped raise $1.25 million for his defense from more than 20,000 people, according to the Bradley Manning Support Network. Supporters have planned rallies this week in three dozen cities, including sites in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy and South Korea.

Inside the courtroom on Monday, as Private Manning sat quietly, David Coombs, his defense lawyer, told the judge that his client had been young, nave, but good-intentioned and that he had tried to ensure that the roughly 700,000 documents he released would not cause harm.

He was selective, Mr. Coombs said. He had access to literally hundreds of millions of documents as an all-source analyst, and these were the documents that he released. And he released these documents because he was hoping to make the world a better place.

But a prosecutor, Capt. Joe Morrow, said that Private Manning was no ordinary leaker who made a particular document public, but rather someone who grabbed classified databases wholesale and sent them to a place where he knew adversaries like Al Qaeda could get to them.

This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of classified documents and dumped them onto the Internet, into the hands of the enemy material he knew, based on his training, would put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk, Captain Morrow said.

The court-martial comes amid a focus on the Obama administrations aggressive record on leaks. The administration has overseen an unprecedented six leak-related prosecutions, and last month it emerged that the Justice Department had secretly obtained calling records for reporters with The Associated Press and for a Fox News reporter; the department also portrayed the Fox reporter as having violated the Espionage Act as part of an application for a search warrant seeking his personal e-mails.

In his 58-minute opening, Captain Morrow cited logs of searches and downloads from Private Mannings classified work computer, deleted files from his personal laptop including chat logs he contended were between Private Manning and a person he said was the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and other such records to show the pace and scale of his downloads.

Most of the assertions in Captain Morrows portrayal dovetailed with Private Mannings confession in February, but there remain a few factual disputes. Among them is that he has pleaded not guilty to leaking to WikiLeaks some 74,000 e-mail addresses for troops in Iraq, but Captain Morrow said that list had been downloaded on a computer Private Manning had used.

Captain Morrow also argued that the private started helping WikiLeaks in late November 2009, shortly after his arrival in Iraq. The military has suggested that he might have sent a video of an airstrike that year in Garani, Afghanistan, in which numerous civilians died, to WikiLeaks around then. Private Manning has admitted sending WikiLeaks the video, but said he did not do so until late March 2010.

In his defense, Mr. Coombs said Private Manning started sending files to WikiLeaks later, in January 2010, after a roadside bombing in Iraq on Dec. 24, 2009. Everyone in his unit celebrated, Mr. Coombs said, after learning that no American troops had been seriously hurt, and their happiness did not abate except for Private Mannings when they learned that members of an innocent Iraqi family had been injured and killed. From that moment, Mr. Coombs contended, things started to change and he soon started selecting information he believed the public should see, should hear and sending them to WikiLeaks.

Captain Morrow also emphasized that Private Manning had uncovered an intelligence report warning that foreign adversaries could be gaining access to the information posted on WikiLeaks. He said the government would show that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, had obtained an archive of wartime incident reports in Afghanistan that Private Manning gave to WikiLeaks. And he argued that some of Private Mannings searches were in response to a 2009 WikiLeaks most wanted list.

But Mr. Coombs rejected the notion that Private Manning was working for WikiLeaks or intended to aid terrorists.

Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer observing the trial, said that he found it striking that the government focused on the enemy as the audience for leaks. Citing as an example the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib prison torture photographs in 2004, he observed that sometimes what may be helpful to the enemy is also indispensable to the public in a functioning democracy.

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