US Private First Class Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks.
The former US Army intelligence analyst was convicted on 20 counts, including six violations of the Espionage Act. He had faced up to 90 years behind bars.
Manning was not convicted of the more serious crime of aiding the enemy.
The sentencing in a military courtroom at Fort Meade, near Baltimore, capped a 12-week trial and a much longer legal battle over his intentions when he reached out to WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors had asked for at least a 60-year sentence and portrayed the 25-year-old as "the determined insider", an anarchist hacker and traitor.
They said Manning started working within weeks of his 2009 deployment to Iraq to provide WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange with exactly what they wanted.
There have been protests calling for his release
Manning and his defence team maintained he was an idealistic soldier who wanted to expose brutal truths about America's military and diplomatic corps.
WikiLeaks has branded the outcome a "significant strategic victory".
Significant strategic victory in Bradley Manning case. Bradley Manning now elegible for release in less than 9 years, 4.4 in one calculation
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 21, 2013
Meanwhile Amnesty International has called on US President Barack Obama to commute the sentence to time already served.
Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International, says they should instead investigate the abuses he exposed.
"His revelations included reports on battlefield detentions and previously unseen footage of journalists and other civilians being killed in US helicopter attacks, information which should always have been subject to public scrutiny" she said.
"Instead of fighting tooth and nail to lock him up for decades, the US government should turn its attention to investigating and delivering justice for the serious human rights abuses committed by its officials in the name of countering terror" she added.
