This has been a whirlwind week for Bradley Manning.
Just last Thursday, he was formally charged on 22 counts for allegedly leaking confidential U.S. diplomatic and military information to WikiLeaks two years ago. (He has yet to plead guilty or not guilty.) Now, however, in a drastic turn of events, he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Oklahoma native, who was arrested in 2010 for his alleged communications with Wikileaks, has talked openly about his experience dealing with homophobia in the U.S. Army. In a New York magazine interview last summer, he said that he had been repeatedly bullied by fellow soldiers who suspected he was gay. Eventually, it got so bad that he had to be referred to an Army mental-health counselor.
Now, Manning joins Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and Ukranian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a list of 231 nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.