US Army Private Bradley Manning has been found guilty of 20 counts related to the transfer of documents to Julian Assange and the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.  But he was acquitted of the most serious charge of “aiding the enemy”.

Manning still faces up to 136 years in prison when the military judge decides on his sentence, if the penalties for each conviction are lined up consecutively.  The sentencing hearing begins Wednesday.

A guilty verdict on the aiding the enemy charge could have had a chilling effect on journalism in the United States.  Critics said it threatened to turn reporters and their sources into criminals for merely exposing wrongdoing by the government.

Among the items that Manning sent to WikiLeaks was graphic footage of a US Apache helicopter attack in 2007 that killed a dozen civilians in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, including a Reuters photographer.

In a statement, Julian Assange criticized the guilty verdicts and President Obama.

“Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosures have exposed war crimes, sparked revolutions, and induced democratic reform. He is the quintessential whistleblower.

“This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security extremism. It is a shortsighted judgment that can not be tolerated and must be reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public is ‘espionage’.”