Bradley Manning enters guilty pleas in WikiLeaks case An Army private charged in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history offered guilty pleas Thursday to 10 of 22 charges against him and a military judge said she would allow the soldier to read a statement explaining his actions. "I believe that if the general public ... had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate as to the role of the military and foreign policy in general," Manning said in court, according to the Reuters news service. Pfc. Bradley Manning would plead guilty to sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, in violation of military regulations but not in violation of federal espionage laws. The judge, Col. Denise Lind, must decide whether to accept the guilty pleas, which could carry a sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors could still pursue a court-martial on the remaining charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning The 25-year-old Manning is accused of sending hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, State Department diplomatic cables, other classified records and two battlefield video clips to WikiLeaks in 2009 and 2010 while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. Manning supporters - who held events Saturday to mark his 1,000 days in confinement - consider him a whistleblowing hero whose actions exposed war crimes and helped trigger the Middle Eastern pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring in late 2010. On Tuesday, it was revealed that Manning has submitted a written statement about the leak and the motive behind it that he wanted to read in court during Thursday's hearing. Prosecutors objected to the statement, but the judge said Thursday she would allow him to read it. The judge ruled that Manning was illegally punished for part of the time he spent at Quantico and that 112 days should be cut from any prison sentence he receives if convicted.