President Barack Obama is commuting the prison sentence of former Tasker Milward pupil Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified documents.

The White House says Manning is one of 209 inmates whose sentences Mr Obama is shortening.

Manning, whose family still live in Milford Haven, is more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Her sentence is now set to expire on May 17.

Manning was still known as Bradley Manning when she was deployed to Iraq in late 2009 as a low-level intelligence analyst.

She copied 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world and hundreds of thousands of military incident logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The classified information was disclosed by Wikileaks, who worked with news organisations.

After her sentencing, Manning announced that she was transgender and changed her name to Chelsea, and attempted suicide twice last year.

Her family have described the news as 'amazing'.

Conservative former Cabinet minister Stephen Crabb praised Mr Obama for showing "mercy" in a complicated case.


The Preseli Pembrokeshire MP said: "I think the actions of President Obama reflect extremely well on him. He has shown compassion and mercy. This was clearly not a straightforward case."